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What will Luigi Di Maio do in the Persian Gulf? Facts and controversies

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What will Luigi Di Maio do in the Persian Gulf? Facts and controversies

News, comments and analysis on the appointment of Luigi Di Maio as EU special envoy for the Gulf countries

Luigi Di Maio is back. The return of the ex exponent of the 5 Star Movement on the political scene, moreover international (in the EU) and not simply domestic, is something done after the vain attempt to be elected to the Politics of 25 September with Civic Commitment in the center-left.

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Yesterday Corriere della Sera published a letter dated April 21 in which Josep Borrell Fontelles – the high representative for European foreign policy – ​​is betting precisely on the former five-starred minister and deputy prime minister. A choice that was formalized in September 2022 and which was already being talked about abundantly in the following weeks.

Di Maio was the first and foremost name to appear on the scene for the post. “After careful consideration, I consider Luigi Di Maio to be the most suitable candidate for the post. As a former Italian foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio has the necessary international political profile for this role,” wrote Borrell (pictured with Di Maio).

“The other candidates – the newspaper in via Solferino recalls today – were the former Cypriot foreign minister Markos Kyprianou, the former UN envoy to Libya Jan Kubis (Slovak), and the former foreign minister and EU commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, strongly supported by Athens but whose name has been talked about because he was part of the board of Antonio Panzeri's NGO Fight Impunity, a position from which he resigned but for which he had received compensation of 60 thousand euros between February 2021 and February 2022 ”.

THE CHOICE OF BORRELL (HIGH REPRESENTATIVE OF THE EU FOREIGN POLICY)

Initially, Borrell writes in the letter, the assignment will be for 21 months starting next June 1st and ending on February 28th 2025.

The Italian government immediately echoed declarations of acceptance of the choice, but also of clarification that it was an option examined by the previous executive, the one led by Mario Draghi.

The ratification, we read in the last minute yesterday, is scheduled for today. But more likely, further internal passages will be needed between the representatives of the Community executives before the definitive official status: passing first to the European Political and Security Committee and then to the Commission.

TAJANI'S WORDS

"It is a candidacy he presented when he was Foreign Minister, it has nothing to do with this government", thus cut short the Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani (Forza Italia), and Deputy Prime Minister in the Meloni government, commenting on the news.

Not really a support, in short, that of the center-right executive.

THE ASSIGNMENT AND THE GULF DOSSIER

What will Di Maio's work consist of?

The countries of the Persian Gulf, namely Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates, will therefore for the first time have a political leader from the European Union.

– Read also: I'll tell you about the weight and rise of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates. Cinzia Bianco speaks

The operational role of these EU figures is diplomatic and political, with regional and specific relevance to individual sectors of work. In the case of Di Maio, for example, energy and security should be the top issues on the former minister's table. With the issue of gas and the delicate relationship with the Iranian theocracy in the front row.

As explained by Cinzia Bianco – research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and author with Matteo Legrenzi of The Arab Monarchies of the Gulf. New center of gravity in the Middle East (Il Mulino) – to Marco Orioles in Start Magazine , “Italy does not depend on the Gulf for its energy needs, importing a modest amount of oil from Saudi Arabia and natural gas from Qatar, respectively, 8.1% and 9.2% of imported needs in 2020. At the same time, the Italian energy major Eni is increasingly active in the Gulf area”.

Furthermore, added Bianco, "there is essentially a two-speed gulf: some nations, namely Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Qatar in particular, are running very fast also in terms of economic diversification as well as on the energy transition and are trying to attract infrastructure investments or on logistics". These countries, then, find themselves playing on the same ground and competing while other minor monarchies such as "Oman, Bahrain and above all Kuwait" have fewer aces to draw.

HOW MUCH WILL YOU EARN?

“The contract for the EU special envoy for the Persian Gulf will have a maximum duration of two years. The indemnity could be around 12,000 euros net per month, with a subsidized tax regime and total coverage of staff expenses”, Il Sole 24 Ore already detailed last November.

"The remuneration will be determined through a direct agreement between the adviser and the authority", writes Repubblica today , reporting what was communicated from Brussels. An estimated 12,000 euros net per month, “with a favorable tax regime and total coverage of staff expenses. Today there are nine special representatives set up, including the one for the Sahel entrusted to the Italian Emanuela Del Re, former deputy foreign minister”, adds the newspaper directed by Maurizio Molinari.

WHAT ARE THEY SAYING IN THE GULF?

It will be interesting, among the first moves of the former deputy prime minister, to understand with what "node" he will return to the Gulf to do politics.

It was July 2021 when the then Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio countered the decision of the previous January by the Conte government and reopened the export of arms to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. One of the many pirouettes that have characterized the most Christian Democrat politician on the Italian scene in recent years.

But at the time , wrote Sharon Nizza in La Repubblica , "the furious reaction of the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates had not been calculated" and proceeded with failed contracts with Rome, political retaliation for Italy including the closure of access to the base aerial of Al Minhad, in the Emirates, strategic for supplies to Afghanistan and Kuwait.

Did that water pass today?

MEDIA ROUND ON DI MAIO

"Di Maio's appointment is an insane choice and Europe's decision is embarrassing", hissed this morning on La7 Tonia Mastrobuoni, Berlin correspondent for Repubblica .

According to the sociologist and editorialist for La Stampa , Massimiliano Panarari , “it is in any case good news for Italy and the country-system. And, also, bad news for the Meloni executive, because it highlights once again that decisions are made in Brussels regardless of certain wishes of his".

The opinion of Marta Ottaviani, journalist and essayist, collaborator of Avvenire and the newspapers of the Riffeser group is different:

For Claudio Tito , EU correspondent for Repubblica , it is a "showdown" between Rome and Brussels or at least a "warning". E: “it is a broader signal from the European Commission and from the two main chancelleries, the German and the French, to the Italian government. One way of saying: you are pulling too much on too many fronts and on too many dossiers, if the EU wants it can decide on many things even without you”.

The reading of Paolo Messa's foreign magazine Formiche is different, instead underlining the positive aspect of Di Maio's appointment: "The candidacy of the former Foreign Minister is explained by Fini and Casini with a non-partisan and superstructural attitude: that is, how the occasion for an international step forward for Italy and not as a divisive event between factions”.

The comment by Maurizio Belpietro, founder and director of La Verità, was dry: the Di Maio case “is the latest champion of a specialty of the left and its allies: the more the voters punish them, the more seats and power arrive. The more they lose, the more they stick to the chair”.

"Any European country would rejoice at the appointment of one of its compatriots to a European or international office", wrote the director of the IAI, Nathalie Tocci, in La Stampa instead. Recalling that in fact, apart from Di Maio, there were no other options on the table and above all that "the EU Special Representatives have relative power, above all because there are few crises in which the Union plays the role of mediator". So, first of all, the story needs to be resized. And then: "in the light of this, giving Europe a greater voice through a Special Representative is the right thing to do".

Even if Italy, with the Meloni government which did not support this choice, has not shown that it understands this.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/luigi-di-maio-ue-golfo/ on Mon, 24 Apr 2023 12:06:43 +0000.