The Spanish minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfonso Dastis, is on holiday with his family in Ecuador. According to the online newspaper eldiario.es, they are staying in the residence of the Spanish ambassador and enjoying the help of ministry staff and the use of official vehicles.
It's not a formal visit and Dastis has gone there without any kind of official agenda. According to Foreign Affairs Ministry sources quoted in the newspaper, the minister has paid for the whole holiday himself, apart from the accommodation, travel and meals, namely, everything necessary to be able to go on a trip.
To justify this family break in Ecuador, the ministry states that the minister has met the Ecuadorian chancellor María Fernanda Espinosa, although this meeting doesn't appear in his official schedule.
The Spanish government was aware that the minister and his family had used an official car and claimed that this was for security reasons. That said, the newspaper notes that the travel recommendations for Ecuador that the ministry publishes on its website only warn of "seismic activity and active volcanoes".
Alfonso Dastis nominated Carlos Abellá i de Arístegui as Spain's ambassador to Ecuador last February, according to the official state gazette.
The news of the Foreign Affairs minister's trip comes a week after eldiario.es' revelation about the husband of the Defence Secretary, María Dolores de Cospedal. The minister allowed her husband to travel on a luxury cruise used by the navy to reward officials and sailors' relatives.