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The Embassy of Bolivia in Vienna |
The Ambassador
Amb. Elizabeth Ana Ferrel Álvarez
Elizabeth Ana Ferrel Álvarez is a career diplomat of the Plurinational State of Bolivia who has served for well over a decade — from at least 2011 through 2026, per official UN documentation — at Bolivia's Permanent Mission to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna, holding the diplomatic rank of Counsellor. In that time she has repeatedly served as Bolivia's Alternate Permanent Representative on delegations to Vienna-based UN bodies, including the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), UNIDO's Industrial Development Board, and multiple UNODC bodies such as the Conference of the States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
History
Bolivia and Austria established diplomatic relations on October 27, 1903. Austro-Hungarian consular representation in Bolivia predates that: an Honorary Vice-Consulate operated in the mining town of Oruro from 1904 to 1918, and an Honorary Consul was appointed in La Paz in 1914, with that consulate closing in 1920; a further Honorary Consulate in La Paz operated from 1926 to 1939. Starting in 1938, a number of Austrian citizens, including Jewish refugees, relocated to Bolivia; several hundred remained through 1945, among them individuals involved in theater production in La Paz, Cochabamba, and Sucre, who in 1941 formed an association called the "Federation of Free Austrians in Bolivia" (FAL). Consular relations resumed after the war, from November 1949.
In the present day, Austria's Foreign Ministry describes bilateral relations with Bolivia (administered jointly with Peru, through the Austrian Embassy in Lima) as friendly, referencing shared commitments to the UN Charter and to multilateral cooperation. Documented areas of cooperation include a 1972 bilateral development agreement, renewed automatically on a two-year cycle, under which the two countries carried out a mining-education cooperation program in the 1970s, including a joint Austrian-Bolivian technical school for mining technicians in Oruro. Following a 2006 update to European Union visa regulations, Bolivian passport holders have required a visa to enter the Schengen area, including Austria. Austria does not maintain a resident embassy in La Paz; bilateral relations are handled through Austria's Embassy in Lima, which holds concurrent responsibility for Bolivia, supported by an Austrian Honorary Consulate General in La Paz.
