President José Antonio Kast has appointed lawyer Juan Carlos Canepa as Chile's ambassador to Italy and former senator Ricardo Navarrete as ambassador to Colombia, according to Emol. The outlet cites the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (Chile's Ministry of Foreign Affairs) as its source.
According to the Cancillería (the Foreign Ministry), both appointments have already received agrément. This is the formal approval the receiving state grants before an ambassador takes up his duties. The report does not say when the two will arrive at their posts.
Canepa is a lawyer who graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. According to the report, he practiced independently for about 50 years. His profile combines business experience with a long connection to the Italian community in Chile.
He was a director of the Instituto Chileno-Italiano de Cultura and an alternate director of the Cámara de Comercio Chileno-Italiana (Chilean-Italian Chamber of Commerce). He was also a founding member of the Patronato Chile Italia, an organization that promotes culture and defends the social rights of residents in Chile of Italian origin.
In the private sector, he ran Holding San Pedro, based in Concepción, for 30 years. He has also directed and provided legal advice to various Chilean companies.
Navarrete's case is different. He already served as ambassador to Colombia between 2014 and 2018, during Michelle Bachelet's second government. He now returns to the same post under an administration from the opposite side of the political spectrum. The source does not explain what prompted the decision.
Navarrete holds a degree in business engineering (ingeniería comercial) from the Universidad Técnica del Estado, a licentiate in Economic Sciences, and a diploma in Business Sciences from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, in Spain.
His public career began with the return to democracy. He was a senator for La Araucanía from 1990 to 1994. Then, from 2006 to 2010, he was subsecretario de Investigaciones (undersecretary for investigations).
The Emol report does not detail the agenda the new ambassadors will have in Rome and Bogotá, nor whether these appointments are part of a larger round of nominations. With agrément granted, the next step is for both to take office and present their credentials to the governments of Italy and Colombia.
