At G7 in Italy, Meloni’s clout may be the ticket to Ukraine breakthrough

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The G7 summit in southern Italy is becoming a high-profile mob scene. In addition to the G7 leaders themselves, A-list guests – among them Pope Francis, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the leaders of Brazil, Turkey and India – will make appearances.

The gathering of the leaders of democracies, illiberal democracies, monarchies and effective dictatorships, which gets under way Thursday, will make for an odd, potentially awkward summit. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni evidently wanted to play down the G7′s image as a fortress for rich countries by throwing its doors wide open. Her challenge is to find broad support – and constructive criticism – for the pressing issues of her mandate: Ukraine, Gaza, climate, migration and artificial intelligence.

She may oversee a breakthrough on the Ukraine file. Victories on the other issues will be harder to come by.

Ms. Meloni, as host, will strut into the summit on a high note. Her Brothers of Italy party placed first in Sunday’s European elections, earning her the admiration of the other G7 leaders, three of whom have suffered severe blows in the run-up to the summit.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party won just half the votes of Marine Le Pen’s triumphant far-right National Rally. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats placed third. And the polls say British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservatives will get slaughtered in Britain’s July 4 election.

Ms. Meloni will use her political clout to try to extend her winning streak.

The Ukraine file is at the top of her list. Unlike many populist parties and those on the hard right, she supports Ukraine, condones the sanctions against Russia and has delivered weapons to the Ukrainian military. The next step for her and the other G7 leaders is agreeing on a plan to use the investment income from some US$300-billion in frozen Russian financial assets stashed abroad, mostly in Europe, to keep Kyiv in the fight.

Speed is of the essence. The war is going badly for Ukraine, whose military is running severely short of all types of weapons. The G7 is also aware that Donald Trump could win the U.S. election in November and stop sending weapons to Kyiv while he tries to impose a Russia-friendly peace deal on Ukraine. While there is broad agreement to use the “windfall” profits – definition to come – from the Russian assets to buy weapons, there is no agreement on the method.

The profits come to about US$3-billion a year. Many European Union governments simply want to skim off this income and invest it in arms purchases. The United States has a more ambitious proposal, one supported by Canada and Britain. It would see the income stream from the frozen assets finance a US$50-billion loan that would be raised in the market or provided by the U.S., EU or G7 governments – or combinations of them.

The devil is in the details. For instance, the EU’s sanctions regime that froze the Russian assets needs unanimous renewal every six months by the 27 member governments. Were one to balk – say, Russia-friendly Hungary – the freeze would lapse.

John Kirton, director of the University of Toronto’s G7 Research Group, thinks a firm plan will emerge at the G7. “This has become the make-or-break issue at the summit,” he said. “They are already into this issue deeply.”

The Israel-Hamas war, to be sure, will also be at the forefront. At the summit, U.S. President Joe Biden, with Ms. Meloni’s help, will try to shore up support for his peace plan, which he announced May 31. The three-stage proposal would lead to the release of all the remaining hostages in Gaza in return for Israel accepting steps to a permanent ceasefire and eventual withdrawal of its forces from Gaza.

On Tuesday, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad expressed “readiness to deal positively” with the Biden plan, which has been endorsed by the UN Security Council but has triggered a backlash among the far-right factions in the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mr. Biden’s plan will gain traction if it receives the unequivocal backing of the G7, plus support from the other heavyweight leaders at the summit.

Two other issues – climate and AI – will also be at the forefront of the three-day summit.

In April, the G7 climate, energy and environment ministers pledged to close their unabated coal-fired power plants “in the first half of the 2030s” (unabated means plants that lack the technology to capture and store their carbon dioxide emissions). There is plenty of skepticism surrounding this goal, all the more so since the United States still relies on the dirty fuel for some 20 per cent of its electricity production. If the G7 leaders confirm their commitment to kill off coal by 2035, the skeptics might back off.

Pope Francis will be the first pontiff to attend a G7 summit. He is turning AI into one of his themes (along with the environment and migrants) and is campaigning to ensure it helps humanity and does not turn into a “technological dictatorship,” as he recently put it, through such things as AI-controlled weapons systems.

Ms. Meloni will urge him on. She has expressed worry about the ethical and practical consequences, including job losses, of AI. On this topic, at least, she is on the same page as the Pope. “We have seen something similar with globalization, which has led to the verticalization of wealth and the impoverishment of the middle class,” she said late last year.