The European Commission refused to comment on leaks reported by Italian media about the selection of former Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio as a European special envoy to the Gulf region.
This came in response from Peter Stano, a spokesman for the European External Action Service, to a question about the leaks, which said that an independent technical committee authorized by the European Union to choose the European special envoy to the Gulf region chose Di Maio as the best candidate.
Stano noted that the European executive “never comments on media speculation”. He said that the selection process for “the European special envoy to the Gulf is continuing, and once it is completed, we will announce the appointment.”
And as it was reported, the list of candidates includes, in addition to Di Maio, the former Cypriot foreign minister, Marcos Kyprianou, the former UN envoy to Libya, Jan Kubis, and the former Greek foreign minister and European Union commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, who is strongly supported by Athens.
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The power to name the new European envoy rests with the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the Union, Josep Borrell.