gestures, diplomacy and ideological friction between Western leaders

Giorgia Meloni has gone from having to renounce fascism to reassure its partners in Italy shortly before coming to power two years ago, to receiving the great leaders of the G7 at home, in a summit full of gestures and diplomacy in which, above all , has managed to capture part of his ideology.

“These days Italy has been at the center of the world. I feel proud that our nation has managed to surprise and set a direction,” celebrated the far-right prime minister.

Meloni is the brand new host of the summit in which the leaders of the G7, the group of most advanced democracies on the planet (Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom), review the convoluted global geopolitics each year.

Everything happened in ‘Borgo Egnazia’, a luxurious, walled stone hotel among centuries-old olive trees in the Italian region of Apulia (southern), chosen by herself during a vacation.

The domains of this idyllic ‘resort’ have welcomed the president of the United States, Joe Biden, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as well as the prime ministers of Canada, Justin Trudeau, or the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, among the rest of the members of this select club.

Meloni arrived at the summit strengthened after the last European elections, dressed in pastel tones and visibly relaxed, unlike many of her partners: Biden is pursuing a difficult re-election, Macron and Sunak face vital elections in their countries, Scholz has been ahead of schedule the ultras and even the discreet Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, are going through turbulence.

She knew that it was an important event for her career and that is why she chose to give it a very personal touch, with a certainly conservative seal, inspired by the value of “identity”, as she herself has defended. It is enough to think that she has obtained the assistance of a pope, Francis, for the first time.

One of his personal guests was the Argentine president, Javier Milei, new icon of the global extreme right. It was with him that she had the most chemistry, welcoming him at the doors of the hotel, between hugs and inaudible jokes that made her laugh.

Shortly after, Meloni Italianized his Argentine friend’s motto: “Long live freedom!” he wrote on the social network X.

This has also been a summit of images, such as that of the parachutists surprising the leaders from the sky of Apulia or that of Trudeau or Sunak touring the ‘resort’ golf course aboard tiny historic cars from the Fiat company.

But also of many gestureslike the one of the prime minister receiving the Pope’s helicopter and then riding with him in a golf car, due to her mobility problems, or letting Biden know, with a subtle touch on the arm, that it was time for a photo of family, when he was distracted by an air show.

The Italian also had fun revalidating the ‘Melodi’, a curious social phenomenon in India that, since the G20 summit in New Delhi last year, jokes about an alleged relationship between her and the Prime Minister of that country, Narendra Modi, another invited to the G7.

“Hello from team ‘Melodi,'” she says in a video with her colleague, both laughing.

But the ‘Borgo Egnazia’ summit was also an unexpected ideological checkerboard at the expense of abortion, with visions as contrasting as that of the conservative Melonithat of Macron, who included it in the French Constitution or that of Biden, who has made this right his electoral flag.

The decision was Solomonic: In the final declaration there was no trace of the word of discordbut the leaders revalidated their support for last year’s Hiroshima text, which did leave it in writing.

Meloni assured in the final press conference that the word was not referred to because it had already been written in 2023, so as not to make the text “uselessly repetitive”, and denounced an “artificial controversy.”

However, the pulse was revealed by a exchange of reproaches with Macron and an icy greeting between the two between the rock walls of a castle, at the gala dinner (her severe look at her “partner” spread like wildfire on social networks).

In the end, the French president, besieged by the extreme right in his country, tried to iron out differences: “There is no controversy, let’s not exaggerate. We know our disagreements, which exist,” he subsided.

While the G7 negotiations are still smoking over the tops of the olive trees of ‘Borgo Egnazia’, it remains to be seen how long this ‘pax’ will last. The next screen will be the distribution of the senior officials of the European Union after the elections and Meloni will play his cards.