Italy’s former foreign minister and deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio from the 5Star Movement has been put forward for the position of EU special envoy to the Persian Gulf despite questions about his suitability for the role.
Di Maio was selected by the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, who last week forwarded his candidacy to EU ambassadors who now need to ratify it by a qualified majority.
His candidacy has been mocked in Italian media due to his poor CV, lack of a university degree or any professional-level knowledge of foreign languages or of international politics, as well as gaffes during his tenure as foreign minister. He called Chinese President Xi Jinping “Ping” in Shanghai during a press conference. Other Italian commentators have ridiculed Di Maio over grammatical errors in Italian.
Italy’s governing centre-right coalition parties have expressed disapproval. Not merely because Di Maio was the former leader of the populist, anti-establishment opposition Five Star Movement, but because there are other, more deserving candidates. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Di Maio “was selected by Draghi and he is not the candidate chosen by the Italian government.” Mario Draghi was Italy’s former technocratic prime minister. For the populist, right-wing Lega representatives in Rome and in Brussels, the choice is “embarrassing” and an “insult to Italians”, especially after the “damage wrought by Di Maio with the Arab world” when he was foreign minister, in particular an arms embargo with the United Arab Emirates that has seen bilateral relations slump.
Di Maio was considered an ideal candidate for the role in July 2022 by the technical panel in Brussels that evaluated the curricula of aspiring special envoys including former Cypriot Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou, former UN envoy to Libya Jan Kubis, and former European Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos.
Avramopoulos was considered a frontrunner, but his alleged connection to the Qatargate corruption scandal and the “Fight Impunity” NGO founded by Pier Antonio Panzeri has cast a shadow on his credibility. Avramopoulos claims the scandal was staged by Italians in Brussels to favour Di Maio.
Meloni has not vetoed the candidacy. Her party’s delegation in Brussels, Brothers of Italy, released a statement giving soft disapproval: “Borrell has made a choice that is certainly legitimate on a formal level but which, in the face of the changed political framework, he should have had the sensitivity to confront with the new government, which, moreover, has been committed since its inauguration to normalising relations with some Gulf states after the diplomatic tensions that have arisen precisely in recent years”, reads the official note of the FDI delegation to the European Parliament.
