EMMANUEL Taste has a long history of involvement in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The 65-year-old Frenchman has worked for some of Russia’s main energy groups and helped create the French-speaking service of the Russian public television channel, RT. In 2020, he obtained Russian citizenship by special decree of the president.
Yet for two years, and despite his history of close relations with Mr. Putin’s Russia, Mr. Goût has been the diplomatic representative of a Western European state, even if it is one of the smallest. On February 7, 2022, as Russian soldiers massed on Ukraine’s borders in anticipation of the invasion 17 days later, the Republic of San Marino named him ambassador-at-large. According to Luca Beccari, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the microstate, Mr. Goût was appointed because of his “experience of several years in numerous sectors of interest for the Republic”. However, his name does not appear on the list of San Marino envoys, accessible to the public on its website. His appointment was announced only on a government portal reserved for diplomats, but was not secured.
On July 18, 2023, San Marino entrusted Mr. Goût with more specific responsibilities, as ambassador to Algeria. Beccari said in written responses to questions from The Economist that at the time of the Frenchman’s appointments, “no other nationality was declared and no other nationality emerged from the checks carried out internally”. The decree granting Mr. Goût his additional Russian citizenship can be viewed on a Russian government website.
This late diplomatic career is a manifestation of San Marino’s unusual foreign policy, which has provided Russia – and also China – with a little-known backdoor into Western Europe, and particularly Italy. It raises questions about the European Union’s plans to strengthen ties with the republic. Last December, the EU announced that it had successfully concluded negotiations for an association agreement with San Marino. The deal still needs to be formally approved in Brussels or ratified by the European Parliament.
An independent enclave in northern Italy, San Marino has long maintained close ties with Russia, which it explains by its traditional neutrality. It did not join other Western countries in imposing sanctions after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Instead, five years later, as Kremlin-backed separatists occupied large parts of eastern Ukraine, the foreign minister of the microstate at the time invited his Russian counterpart. , Sergei Lavrov, to make an official visit. In 2021, it purchased Russia’s Sputnik vaccine, giving Moscow’s propaganda boost, and later that year the two countries signed a deal to remove visa restrictions. In 2022, however, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the small republic implemented sanctions against Russia, abandoning centuries of formal neutrality.
That San Marino still has an ambivalent policy toward Russia is no surprise to intelligence sources in Rome. San Marino has long been a haven for espionage, says a former senior Italian intelligence officer. Russian intelligence services, and to a lesser extent Chinese, used San Marino as a place to meet with agents and carry out financial transactions “out of sight”, explains the former official. “It’s a logistical base where we can meet peacefully to discuss what we are doing in Italy.”
The source suggests that recent opposition in San Marino to improving its police equipment may have been driven by factions wishing to keep prying eyes out. San Marino stands to benefit economically from its friendly relations with Russia, from where hundreds of thousands of much-needed Russian tourists have come to the small republic.
Emmanuel Goût first committed to Russia in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. Fininvest, a group controlled by the former Italian Prime Minister and TV Tycoon Silvio Berlusconi assigned him the task of identifying business opportunities in the collapsing Soviet bloc. The Frenchman later founded a RP company that worked for the state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom, lobbying other countries to buy Russian nuclear power plants. His consulting firm, Stratinvest, also counted oil giants Rosneft and Gazprom among its clients.
In 2015, after turning his attention to France, Mr. Goût introduced future far-right politician Eric Zemmour to the Kremlin, according to a French newspaper. Two years later, he played a key role in the creation RT France. According to Ukrainian intelligence sources, Mr. Goût helped arrange meetings with foreign politicians and journalists for Mr. Lavrov, and was consulted on negotiations over arms sales. Mr. Goût did not respond to a request for comment.
Not that he is the only San Marino envoy with close ties to Russia. Professor Igor Pellicciari, the republic’s ambassador to Jordan, who is Italian, was appointed in 2019. Yet from 2014 to 2017, he represented Russia as honorary consul in Bologna, the most accessible major city in Saint -Marine. Honorary consuls must reside in designated territories and, according to Italian diplomatic sources, his accreditations were revoked after he informed authorities of his move to Russia. In response to The Economist Mr. Pellicciari claims that he “never received financial compensation of any kind, even in the form of reimbursement of expenses” for his activities as honorary consul.
San Marino, landlocked, has fewer than 34,000 inhabitants and occupies an area of barely 60 km². This makes it one of the smallest countries in the world. Yet until February 29 of this year, his honorary consul in Moscow was among the most powerful men in Russia. Vladimir Lisin had held the position since 2002. Mr. Lisin, a steel tycoon, is Russia’s third-richest citizen, according to Forbes, a business magazine. He publicly criticized the invasion of Ukraine, but is subject to sanctions by Australia, which put him on its list in 2022 for “engaging in any activity or performing any function which is of economic or strategic importance for Russia. San Marino only removed Mr. Lisin from its consular corps after he submitted his resignation; Mr. Lisin’s office said The Economist that this was “due to his inability to be present on a regular basis in the regions of consular activity”. Mr. Beccari claims that San Marino did not act sooner “since Mr. Lisin’s name does not appear in the European Union sanctions, to which San Marino adheres.”
San Marino has been independent since 1291. It was not united with the rest of Italy in the 19th century – a reward, according to some versions, for hosting Giuseppe Garibaldi and his wife during the struggle for Italian unification. Once a tax haven, San Marino’s economy has suffered in recent years from tighter control of offshore financial centers. Yet its citizens are among the richest in the world.
Peter Stano, European Commission spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, said: “San Marino is a country EU like-minded partner and regularly supports EU foreign policy positions in international organizations. He also noted that San Marino had voted for the UN General Assembly motion demanding Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine. But a senior Ukrainian intelligence official said that while San Marino’s continued ties to Russia were “no surprise,” the apparent lack of attention given to San Marino’s foreign policy by its European neighbors was “a cause for concern”. ■
