European Customs Authority: ADM joins the board with Andrea Mazzella

A seat on the Management Board of the new European Customs Authority. Andrea Mazzella, Minister Plenipotentiary and Director of International Relations at the Customs and Monopolies Agency, has been appointed a member of the Management Board of the body tasked with overseeing the implementation of the Customs Union reform. The first meeting will take place on 19 November in Lille.

The French city was chosen in March as the headquarters of the Authority following a selection process involving nine candidates, including Rome. The establishment of the EU Customs Authority was agreed on 26 March by the Council and the European Parliament as part of the revision of the customs framework proposed by the Commission in May 2023. The Authority, which will have a staff of around 285 once fully operational, will coordinate EU-wide risk analysis of import and export data fed into the new European digital customs centre, which it will also be responsible for developing and managing.

A career diplomat, Mazzella has worked on issues relating to international relations, economic security, innovative technologies and the protection of strategic infrastructure. At the Farnesina, he represented the Foreign Ministry on the Golden Power Committee at Palazzo Chigi, dealing with national security and the protection of strategic assets, and served on the secretariats of Under-Secretaries Rino Serri and Alfredo Mantica and, more recently, of Deputy Minister Edmondo Cirielli.

He served as Italia’s ambassador to the Republic of the Congo and as ambassador and special envoy of the Government to Somalia, where he oversaw the process leading to the reopening of the embassy in Mogadishu. At the Ministry, he subsequently headed the Office for the Horn of Africa and the Office for Innovation, Start-ups and Space, supporting the participation of Italian companies and consortia in international technology programmes and accelerators.