José María Arbilla is Ambassador of Argentina to the Tunisian Republic and Chargé d’affaires a.i. to the State of Libya since October 2021.
From 2018 to 2021 he was head of the National Directorate for Economic Negotiations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In that capacity, he coordinated the Argentine inter-ministerial team in the negotiations with the European Union, the European Free Trade Association, Canada, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Peru and Singapore, among others.
He served from 2010 to 2012 at the Directorate of Economic Affairs of MERCOSUR and, from 2000 to 2004, at the Directorate of Latin American Economic Integration. Abroad he served in the Argentine Mission to the European Union from 2012 to 2018, an in the Argentinian Embassy to the Republic of Chile from 2004 to 2009.
He made his training as a future diplomat at the National Foreign Service Institute (ISEN) and at the Rio Branco Institute (Brazilian diplomatic academy). He was awarded the gold medal of his class and the medals for the best grades in economics and foreign trade.
He has a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the Catholic University of Córdoba (Argentina) and a Master’s degree in International Relations from the PontificiaUniversidadeCatólica do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and he obtained a PhD in Political Science from the Universitécatholique de Louvain (Belgium).