Biden bowl or Milei statuette, anyone? Meloni to put world leaders’ gifts up for auction | Giorgia Meloni

Passing on unwanted presents might be considered a little discourteous – unless it’s done the right way.

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, will offload 270 gifts given to her by world leaders during her travels abroad, which could include a chainsaw-wielding statuette of Javier Milei, the Argentinian president, or a pair of blue python skin shoes with gold heels, in a charity auction.

The presents, which together are worth an estimated €800,000 (£700,000), will be put up for sale to the highest bidder by the Rome-based Bertolami Fine Art, a person at the auction house confirmed. A date is yet to be set, although the intention is to hold the auction before Christmas, with the proceeds going to various charities.

The items are locked away in a storage room on the third floor at Palazzo Chigi, the office of the Italian prime minister, Il Foglio reported.

Meloni is also reportedly planning to auction off gifts received by her predecessors that have been gathering dust in the room for years.

The gift list has not yet been made public, but some insight was gleaned in April when an 11-page list of all the gifts declared by Palazzo Chigi was presented in parliament by Francesco Bonifazi, a politician with the centrist party Italia Viva, who raised a query over whether the value limit rule was being honoured. By law, a prime minister cannot take home presents worth more than €300.

Among the items were a scarf from Edi Rama, the Albanian prime minister, given to Meloni for her 46th birthday in January. Rama got down on his knees to present the scarf when the pair met at an energy security meeting in Abu Dhabi.

There is also a traditional Kerala dress from Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, that she received during the G20 summit in Bali in November 2022, a month after the far-right leader came to power, along with a box of jewellery from the Slovakian president, Peter Pellegrini, and a porcelain tea set and six bottles of wine from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

Others gifts include a ceramic bowl from the former US president Joe Biden, a tablet from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, watercolour paintings from Moldova, makeup, a skateboard and 15 carpets received during trips to Libya and other Arab nations.

But perhaps the oddest gifts were the statuette from Milei and the blue python skin shoes with gold heels, which Meloni received from Kamel Al-Munajjed, the director of the Saudi Italian Business Council.

Meloni has been credited, mainly by her own party, Brothers of Italy, with winning over foreign leaders and making Italy a key protagonist in the world again.