Expert Profile



Mr Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé
Position(s) Former Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation; Former EU

Mr Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé is an Associate Fellow within the Global Fellowship Initiative of the GCSP. Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé was born in Madrid on the 8th of June 1951 and studied at the Madrid French Lyceum. He graduated in Law and Political Sciences at the University Complutense in Madrid, and then in Diplomatic Studies at the Spanish Diplomatic School. He entered Spain’s diplomatic service in March 1977. He is a father of three and is married to Dominique Maunac.

He was appointed by the European Union as EU Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process, from 1996 to 2003. From 2004 until 2010 he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain, where he held the presidency of the United Nations Security Council and the chairmanships in-office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe and the Council of the European Union. He ran to be elected Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2011. From 2012 to 2013 he was member of the high level advisory panel of the president of the 67th Session of the UN General Assembly.

During his career he has been awarded numerous distinctions, awards and decorations acknowledging his political and diplomatic career path. In the academic sphere, the undertakings of Miguel Ángel Moratinos have been acknowledged with honorary doctorates by the Universities of Granada, Saint Petersburg or Malta, as well as by the Ben-Gurion University, in Israel, and the Al-Quds University, among others. He is also a regular lecturer in several international institutions and forums, as well as a prolific writer of articles in Spain and abroad. Since 2011, he teaches at Sciences Po Paris.

Currently, he promotes the signature of the International Treaty for a Global Dry Land Alliance in Qatar, he is Honorary Chairman of the CIRSD Board of Advisers (Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development), Senior Advisor of Sustainable Development Solutions Network of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and member of the Leadership Council of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).