The Italian government is irritated by the choice of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to appoint a Spanish diplomat as the Atlantic Alliance’s special representative for the southern front. Last week, during the NATO summit, Giorgia Meloni had publicly declared that Italy would present its candidacywhile the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani had hinted that Rome had a good chance of seeing one of its candidates play a strategic role for Rome.
The shock at the appointment of Javier Colomina, former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy, as well as Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, was such that Italy’s Permanent Representative to NATO, Ambassador Marco Peronaci, sent a letter to Stoltenberg expressing “surprise and disappointment” at the timing of the appointment.
Arrived at the expiring mandate of the NATO secretary: the passing of the baton between Stoltenberg and Mark Rutte will take place at the beginning of October. It is no coincidence, as explained in Washington by Tajani, that Meloni had supported the Italian candidacy precisely with Rutte, present at the summit in the States. What the government asks, in the letter signed by Peronaci, is whether the nomination of the Spaniard should not be considered ‘fixed term’, leaving the choice to Rutte.
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