"Di Maio did an excellent job": assignment confirmed (from 15 thousand euros per month)

“Di Maio did an excellent job”: assignment confirmed (from 15 thousand euros per month)

Luigi Di Maio will still be the European Union’s special envoy to the Persian Gulf and will hold this position until 28 February 2027. The request to confirm the former Italian Foreign Minister, in the role with a golden salary of around 15 thousand euros per month, came from the same EU High Representative, Kaja Kallas, and accepted 27 member countries with a vote of the ambassadors to the PSC (Political and Security Committee).

A life at Di Maio’s for 20 thousand euros a month

The news was anticipated by Il Foglio, which had access to the letter that Kallas sent to Giorgia Meloni last December 20th to communicate the decision. The Prime Minister did not oppose the reappointment, just as she did not oppose her nomination, as despite the political distances our country is certainly comfortable having its own man to manage the EU’s relations with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar , Oman, and United Arab Emirates.

“Excellent” work

That of special envoy for the Gulf is a new role, created in the last legislature with the aim of improving relations with a strategic region not only for the balance between Europe, Asia and Africa but above all for its energy resources.

And for Kallas, Di Maio’s work so far has been “excellent”, we read in the letter which states that the former leader of the 5 Star Movement has made “a great contribution in advancing EU-GCC cooperation”, and has “carried out a key role in the development of both regional and bilateral cooperation with the Gulf countries in the field of political consultations, security dialogues, trade and investment, green energy and relations people-to-people“.

The summit

In addition to the various missions in the countries of the region, there were above all two events to which Di Maio contributed, and which would have earned him reconfirmation: the high-level forum on regional security and cooperation of the EU-Gulf Cooperation Council ( GCC), and above all the first summit between the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council last October, which brought together European and regional leaders in Brussels. “His presence was crucial to the success of the Summit,” Kallas argued in the letter sent to Meloni.

Candidate by Draghi

Towards the end of his mandate as Italian Prime Minister, Di Maio was nominated for the position by Mario Draghi, who, being interested in the key role, proposed the name of his then Foreign Minister. However, the nomination arrived when Giorgia Meloni was now in government, who, despite public declarations to the contrary by several members of the majority, immediately embraced her candidacy for realpolitik.

What Luigi Di Maio will do in the Gulf (concretely)

EU special representatives are often former ambassadors but sometimes, as in the case of Di Maio, also politicians with ministerial positions. They earn around 20 thousand euros gross per month and manage budgets that can reach up to five million euros (Di Maio specifically had a budget of 1.8 million euros for the first 21 months of his mandate). Their work is closely linked to that of the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, a sort of foreign minister of the bloc.