Argentina has appointed Wenceslao Bunge Saravia as its new ambassador to Spain. The role had been vacant for five months following a public diplomatic dispute between President Javier Milei and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez that saw the role vacant for five months.

Bunge Saravia’s appointment was approved last Wednesday in the Senate by an overwhelming majority of 53 votes in favor, with only two opposed.

The new appointee is a businessman who has been living in Spain for several years. Among other positions, he was CEO of Credit Suisse in the country. Although Bunge Saravia obtained Spanish citizenship in 2023, he will have to renounce this in order to take on the position. 

Previous ambassador Roberto Bosch was removed from the role in December 2024 following the diplomatic conflict between Milei and Sánchez. 

Background of a diplomatic row

The diplomatic row between Spain and Argentina began in May 2024 when Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente suggested Milei was a drug user. Weeks later, Milei gave a speech at an event in Madrid organized by the far-right Spanish political party, Vox. Without naming her, he called the Spanish First Lady Begoña Gómez “corrupt” during his speech because of accusations that she had been involved in an influence-peddling scandal. Spanish prosecutors dropped the investigation into her because there was no proof of her involvement.

“The president will not apologize because he has nothing to apologize for,” presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said at the time after the Spanish foreign minister requested a public apology. 

“He didn’t mention [Prime Minister] Pedro Sánchez or anyone from the Spanish government; they took what he said [about corruption] as their own and linked it to what effectively happened with Sánchez’s wife.”

Adorni said that Milei’s comments are personal in nature and “have nothing to do with institutional or diplomatic issues.” He argued they should not affect relations between the two countries. He added that the government would like Spanish authorities to “apologize to Milei for the mistreatment and insults he has received in the past two weeks.”

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares announced the withdrawal of the country’s ambassador to Argentina days later.

Milei continued the row with Sánchez in a later visit to Spain in June 2024. In a speech railing against socialism, the Argentine president accused the Spanish prime minister of either not understanding economics or using the state’s power to “overrun people.”

“[Friedrich] Hayek said that if socialists understood economy, they wouldn’t be socialists […] Mr. Sánchez seems to be one of the exceptions because, despite having studied economics, either he doesn’t understand this or he enjoys the state’s power to overrun people,” Milei said.