The EU’s diplomatic service on Friday filled a range of senior positions in its headquarters as well as naming four new ambassadors.  

The changes also affect the European Commission, as the deputy head of the private office of the commissioner for development has been given a post as director in the European External Action Service (EEAS). Peteris Ustubs (pictured) will be the new director for west and central Africa and co-ordinator for the Sahel. The former Latvian diplomat is currently deputy head of the cabinet for Latvia’s European commissioner, Andris Piebalgs.

An appointment has also been made in the directorate for the Americas, whose managing director is Christian Leffler. Roland Schäfer, Germany’s deputy ambassador to Israel, will serve under Leffler as director for the Americas.

The biggest changes are in the directorate for conflict prevention and security policy. It will now be headed by Joëlle Jenny, who was previously worked in the Swiss foreign ministry and in the International Committee of the Red Cross. The position has been vacant for some months. Her move opens up another post in the directorate: she had been head of unit for prevention, peace-building and mediation instruments.  

Another post in the directorate, as principal adviser, has been filled by Jacek Bylica, a Polish diplomat who has been his country’s ambassador to the UN in Vienna and was, before his appointment, head of the WMD Non-Proliferation Centre at NATO. As well as serving as adviser, he will act as special envoy for non-proliferation and disarmament.  

The directorate was recently separated off from global and multilateral issues and moved under the direct oversight of one of the five top members of the EEAS, Maciej Popowski, one of the service’s two secretaries-general. Popowski is responsible on a day-to-day level for co-ordinating the work of the EU’s security policy and its security and defence policy structures, such as the EU’s military committee.

The position as director of global issues and multilateral relations had also been empty for a while. Its new director was named on Friday as Stephan Auer, a German diplomat who has latterly worked as director for globalisation, energy and climate policy in the German foreign ministry. 

The EEAS has also moved to fill a range of ambassadorial positions for which the selection process has been under way since mid-May or before – to Fiji, Iceland, Morocco and Uruguay. The head of the EU’s delegation to Canada, Matthias Brinkmann, will move to Reykjavik to lead the EU’s delegation to Iceland. Brinkmann, a German, had been ambassador to Canada since 2009.  

Rupert Joy will become the EU’s envoy to Morocco. Joy was until recently the UK’s ambassador to Uzbekistan. His postings include three years as Britain’s deputy ambassador in Morocco.  

The post in Uruguay will be filled by Juan Fernández Trigo; he is currently Spain’s ambassador in Paraguay.  

The head of delegation in Fiji will be Andrew Jacobs, who currently works in the European Commission’s development department, as head of unit for the southern neighbourhood. The post in Fiji covers the entire Pacific region.  

One administrative post was filled – the position of director for human resources was given to Bjorn Larsson, who is moving from the secretariat in the Council of Ministers, where he was head of unit for human resources. Larsson will report to the managing director for administration and finance, Patrick Child, who was the previous director for human resources.