Sir Alex Ellis, new British Ambassador to Spain speaks to La Revista
- Posted by Amy Bell
- On November 6, 2024
In an interview with Jimmy Burns Marañón the new British ambassador shares his views on the opportunities and challenges of UK-Spanish relations, from green energy to an agreement on Gibraltar, and the role of the BritishSpanish Society — along with some personal revelations about family life and his dog Ninotchka.
The appointment of 57-year-old Sir Alex Ellis as the new British ambassador in Spain brings in a youthfully spirited diplomat with experience across a range of diplomatic, EU, security and strategy roles across continents.
He joined the Foreign Office in 1990, after gaining a degree at the University of Cambridge and working as a schoolteacher. Alex’s roles have included an earlier posting in the British embassy in Spain as counsellor for EU and global issues (2003-2005), and adviser to the president of the European Commission with responsibility for energy, climate change, competition, development, trade and strategy.
His first ambassadorial role was in Portugal (2007-2010), followed by a spell as director of strategy responsible for developing Britain’s foreign and other government policy, prior to his posting as ambassador to Brazil (2013- 2017). He then became director general in the Department of Exiting the European Union. He was responsible for the UK-EU security partnership, international agreements with the UK’s closest partners and domestic and EU engagement on Brexit (2017-2019).
Alex has arrived in his new post in Madrid after serving as the British High Commissioner to the Republic of India (2021- 2024).
JB: Which parts of your career in particular have prepared you for being British ambassador to Spain?
AE: I suppose two things. Firstly, working with Europe both bilaterally and multilaterally in the [European] Commission. Secondly, strategy and its delivery. And then, in addition to that, I have probably been in Iberia more than anywhere else — this will be my fourth posting here. It’s handy that I’ve been in Brazil where you have some big Spanish investors like Santander also investing in the UK. And we speak on the day that [Spanish Prime Minister] Pedro Sánchez is in India, [which was] my last posting.
So I’ve got experience outside Europe too and this is what the UK government is trying to do — both reset its relationship with Europe multilaterally with the EU, and bilaterally with Spain, and also go where the growth of the world is, whether that is population or economic growth, and that is Asia.
JB: How different is your experience of India from what you are finding in Spain?
AE: Some things are more similar than you would expect. First of all you have this incredible human relationship between the UK and Spain as you have between the UK and India. Perhaps for different reasons, but you have a big flow of people between the two countries, although in India it’s more India to the UK and here it’s more UK to Spain.
It’s similar in terms of big investments — Indian and Spanish companies investing in the UK — although we trade twice as much with Spain than we do with India. The UK is the third largest investor in Spain and the top European destination for Spanish investment. What is different is that we are trying to reset our relationship with Spain and with the EU; we don’t have a territorial dispute with India that we do with Spain. I was sent to India to reset our relationship after we had left the EU. And in a way that is why I have
been sent to Spain, to reset our relationship. So maybe some of what I am here to do is quite similar.
JB: Perhaps the main difference is that you were pretty busy in India with endless visits by ministers post-Brexit, but now you are serving a British government that wants to reset its relationship with Europe and you have different priorities.
AE: Well I suppose priorities in some ways are eternal: security, prosperity and human relationships. What I am trying to do here in Spain is re- invigorate a political relationship. You have the ingredients, but you don’t have yet the whole meal of a UK-Spain relationship. Actually, one thing that struck me since I started this job as British ambassador to Spain is the number of Spanish cabinet ministers who have been visiting the UK or speaking to their counterparts, in government departments like the Ministry of Climate and Energy, Work, Agriculture, the Interior, Trade, with two bilateral meetings between the foreign ministers since I’ve started. So there is quite a lot of interaction already and now we have to build on that.
JB: On the issue of cultural and educational diplomacy, how important do you see the role of the BritishSpanish Society, with its history of more than one hundred years and what it does today in the UK and Spain?
AE: [There is] this extraordinary flow of people between the two countries and some of the most effective stitching of that together is done not necessarily by governments but by organisations like the BritishSpanish Society. I think it’s great what the BritishSpanish Society is doing with its scholarship programme in supporting Spanish students coming to the UK. Obviously there was a significant drop in the flow of young people as a result of Brexit, with the increase in fees, but in fact Spain has picked up more than one or two other European countries this year. We’ve just had a universities fair and there is a lot of interest in studying in the UK.
But I think that human flow and seizing it and supporting it through education and culture is incredibly important. And you see it across the spectrum of culture, from high culture — with the example of the UK-Spain elements in the Rubens exhibition in the Prado [museum] —through to Jude Bellingham in Real Madrid. And this is shown and celebrated by organisations outside government, such as the BritishSpanish Society.
JB: Can I go now to a character that was very much in evidence and almost the star of the show at the BritishSpanish Society’s autumn reception you kindly hosted at your official residence in Puerta Hierro — your genial dog Ninotchka. Tell us about her origins, as you seem very fond of her and she seems destined to play a key diplomatic role in the residence.
AE: I think I should start carefully. I remember once reading a review of a concert by the violinist Nigel Kennedy, where the reviewer said it was unwise for somebody who wanted to be the star of the show to be upstaged by their dog that ran across the stage. He had a pug at the time.
I have had the zeal of a convert on dogs. I had dogs in my family when I was a kid, but not since. Ninotchka is from India. She’s a Rampur greyhound, she’s an OK traveller. I think she’s certainly enjoying the residence. She’s named after a Greta Garbo film from the Second World War, directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch, which I recommend to all of your readers. And she has a certain Garbo statuesque quality to her. She probably runs a bit faster than Greta Garbo, but likes a party.
JB: What other characteristics?
AE: An Indian friend of ours said that our dog relies too much on her looks. She can certainly work a sofa when she needs to pretty well.
JB: You’ve got a family, a wife and a son. You know, when we get sent to a place, it’s always a quite justified concern as to how the family is going to integrate. So what are your best hopes for your family in Spain, in terms of accompanying you in your life, but also ensuring that they’re happy?
AE: I think you’re absolutely right. You know so well yourself, Jimmy, when you’re moving around the world, your family really is a pretty central part of whether that works or doesn’t work. I think this is a great posting for my wife. As you know, Teresa is Portuguese so she knows Spain very well, it’s like being with her cousins. Our son really liked living here before. He’s on the autistic spectrum, but I think this is a good place for someone like our son because the Spanish, you know, are open, and easy to talk to.
And it’s a chance to get back to a country which we really like living in. Before we were slightly untimely ripped away because I was called to go and work for the president of the European Commission, only a year after being here last time, so we feel that this is unfinished business with friends we have here in Spain and also a chance to get to know the country better. So I think for me and my family it’s a great opportunity to be in a place we like and in a place which is near to other places we like in the UK. My wife is a magistrate in the first instance in criminal courts in West London.
[Our son] stays with us. He’s finished university now. It’s great that Samuel expected to get a degree, which he’s got now. We now have to work out what is a good and useful way for him to spend his time.
JB: Let’s go back to the opportunities of this posting. What are your best hopes, and, on the other side of the coin, your main challenges?
AE: Sure. I mean the opportunity is enormous. I think it’s turning the potential energy which exists in the UK-Spain relationship into kinetic energy because I feel there’s so much we could do together, government to government. I think a lot happens business to business, a lot happens people to people but more needs to be done government to government. We are both essentially developed democracies who are facing very similar challenges, whether that’s on housing, whether that’s on the energy transition, or on security for our people.
We live in an overall macroeconomic and political scenario which is pretty complicated, and I think will remain so for the next decade or so. So, I don’t think we have the luxury of not doing this together. How are we going to make this great energy transition? How are we going to grow? I think there are great opportunities between two developed democracies and we happen to have two governments who are from the same political family.
Both our governments are looking at sustainability, not only in environmental terms, but also in social terms, how can we grow sustainably over a long period of time. So I think there is a lot of opportunity for building on the fantastic human and investment and trade base which we have.
And I’d like to grow through using things a bit more, including on defence where we have obviously the Spanish shipbuilder Navantia building some of the fleet support ships with Harland & Woolf for the UK, which is great. And I think the challenges will be how to fulfil this potential. Both countries will be looking outside Europe. Pedro Sánchez is looking at India and China. Recently we had UK foreign secretary David Lammy in China…
JB: You know the elephant in the room is still Gibraltar. I know it’s a difficult one but everyone knows that this is a process of negotiation that has been going on for more than two years. I’m just wondering where talks are at this stage and is it just too close to call as to whether you have an agreement or not before Christmas?
AE: I think that it’s taking time because it’s hard. And it’s complex. And Gibraltar is the last bit of the Brexit puzzle to put into the jigsaw. That’s the one outstanding part. I can’t speak for the Spanish side, but I do see determination both from the government of Gibraltar and the British government side. There is a determination to try and get this done because there’s a lot of upside.
JB: And if you had to summarise, what are the upsides?
AE: I think it’s an easier flow of people and creation of shared prosperity between particularly that part of Spain and Gibraltar. And that is what’s on offer: a way which respects the well- known positions of both UK and Spain in relation to sovereignty. But it’s all about the details, and those are hard.
JB: Now, finally, some quick questions and answers. What’s your favourite football club?
AE: Arsenal
JB: Your favourite hobby?
AE: I love singing. I just joined a choir in Madrid and I enjoy most sports.
JB: What’s your favourite Spanish food?
AE: Merluza.
JB: Your favourite British food?
AE: A Cornish pasty.
JB: On the balance of probabilities, it is highly unlikely, but you can never rule it out, you being stranded on some desert island. What would be your book of choice to take on that island?
AE: I think in the BBC’s Desert Island Discs programme you’re given the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, aren’t you?
JB: Yes. What else?
AE: I think I would enjoy rereading A Suitable Boy. I read it before I went to India and I know Vikram Seth, the author and poet, a bit and all of life is in that book. There is a wonderful force to Seth’s writing.
JB: Which piece of music would you like to have with you?
AE: Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem. My father died last year and I was singing it. I was preparing it and then performed it. And it makes me think about my father. He was a lovely man. And with all of the emotions, it’s a piece of work that makes you cry, but it’s also wonderful to hear.
JB: Thank you very much, ambassador.
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