Rosário Bento Pais is a career diplomat and European Commission official since 2000. She began her career at the Directorate-General for the Environment as a legal negotiator for Multilateral Environmental Agreements. She later served as Deputy Head of Unit and Adviser to the Director-General, responsible for international climate change negotiations. From 2004 to 2007, she was a member of the Cabinet of the European Commissioner for Agriculture.

Between 2009 and 2019, she served as Head of Unit—first at the Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA), and later at the Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA). In September 2019, she was appointed European Union Ambassador to Gabon, São Tomé and Príncipe, and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). Since September 2023, she has been serving as the European Union Ambassador to Angola.

Prior to joining the European Commission, she worked at the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, holding diplomatic posts at an embassy and later at Portugal’s Permanent Representation to the European Union, where she served as Mertens during Portugal’s Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Ambassador Bento Pais holds a degree in International Relations and a master’s degree in European Law. A Portuguese national, she is fluent in French, English, and Spanish, and has intermediate knowledge of Swedish.