GENEVA, FEBRUARY 2 – Newly appointed Italy’s Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Geneva, Ambassador Vincenzo Grassi today presented letters of credentials to Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of the Geneva hub of the United Nations. “It is an honor to start my mission at the Italian Mission in Geneva,” said Grassi, who on January 30th replaced Ambassador Gian Lorenzo Cornado.
Conscious multilateralism, respect for international law, the promotion of equal opportunities, the search for shared solutions to global problems: these are the priorities of increasing importance, which Italy pursues in line with the principles and values of its Constitution, said the new Permanent Representative.
Hailing from Naples, Grassi entered the diplomatic career in 1984 at the Directorate General for Economic Affairs. His first experience abroad was from 1987 to 1990 at the Italian Embassy in Cairo. In 1990 he moved to Brussels to the Permanent Mission of Italy to the then European Community, thus beginning a long career in contact with the regional EU realities. In 1994 he returned to the Rome headquarters, again at DG Economic Affairs, where he remained until 1998, when he was posted to Paris. In 2002, he returned to Rome, at the Directorate General for European Integration.
From 2007 to 2012 Grassi was in Brussels as Deputy Permanent Representative of Italy to the European Union, then in 2012 he returnen home at the Directorate General for the European Union, for which since 2013 he has been Deputy Director General and Central Director for European Integration, in addition to being appointed Head of the Department for European Policies at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. In 2014, the move to the Directorate General for the Promotion of the Country System, before yet another return to Belgium as Ambassador of Italy in Brussels in 2015.
From January 2017 to January 2021 Grassi was Secretary General of the European University Institute in Florence, then, until the new mandate in Geneva, he served as Senior Advisor at the Department for European Union. (@OnuItalia)
