Luigi Di Maio has been the EU special representative for the Gulf region since June 1, 2023. Previously he was a columnist at Il Foglio, an Italian daily newspaper. Di Maio served as minister of foreign affairs of Italy from September 2019 to October 2022. Before that, he was the president of the of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly. From June 2018 to September 2019, he held the positions of deputy prime minister of Italy, minister of economic development and trade, minister of labour and social policies. From March 2013 to March 2018, he was the vice president of the Chamber of Deputies and a member of the European Union Affairs Committee in the 17th Italian legislature. During his mandate as foreign minister he chaired the G20 Foreign Affairs Ministers meeting, the G20 Trade Ministers meeting, the G20 Ministerial Meeting on Afghanistan, the June 2021 plenary Ministerial Meeting of the International Anti-Daesh Coalition, and the first Mediterranean Ministerial Dialogue on the Food Security Crisis in June 2022. He was the chair of three annual editions (2019, 2020, 2021) of the MED Dialogue conference aiming to develop a positive agenda for the wider Mediterranean region, at a time of pandemic and political and economic transition, based on multilateralism as a strategy for conflict resolution.