PRESIDENT MELONI’S INTRODUCTION

Good evening everyone, thank you for being here.

I am frankly mortified that you are having to attend a press conference when it is past midnight here, but I felt it was right to hold a press point before leaving, as I have decided to go back to Italy.

I have done my job here over the last two days but, frankly speaking, I can no longer manage to be so far from Italy at such a complex time. I need to see the situation myself and to work firsthand on providing the necessary responses. As you have seen, the Government has already been mobilised. I wish to personally thank the over 5,000 people currently stationed in Emilia-Romagna who are helping with the rescue operations, tackling the emergency, just as I wish to thank all Ministers and members of the Government who are dealing with the situation; however, after more than two days away from Italy at such a complex time, my conscience compels me to return. I have shared this choice with the other leaders, whom I also wish to thank for their full solidarity which, as you have seen, they have publicly expressed, also offering help where necessary. Everyone understands and supports this choice.

I also personally need the time to best organise the Council of Ministers meeting and the measures that will be approved on Tuesday. I have spoken about this with Prime Minister Kishida, and I spoke about this today with President Zelensky. As you know, the G7 and the partner countries that have been invited to this edition of the G7 Summit will meet with President Zelensky tomorrow. Also President Zelensky understands perfectly; we had a bilateral meeting today and Ukraine knows that it can count on Italy’s comprehensive support.

Over the last two days, we have brought our point of view to the table. I believe this G7 Hiroshima Summit has been a success for Japan and I believe Prime Minister Kishida must be congratulated for the excellent organisation and also for the clarity with which he has laid out the topics for discussion we have addressed over the last two days.

We have spoken a lot about the ongoing conflict and the consequences it creates for our societies. We have spoken a lot about the mistakes that have been made in the past and how we now have to somehow reverse the trend, for example with regard to economic security for our societies, with regard to supply chains. We have spoken about economic coercion, about relations with the Global South (as we were saying, some of these countries have joined us here today), about how to overcome the narrative of the West being against the rest of the world, because this is not the ongoing conflict. The ongoing conflict is instead the conflict where the Ukrainians are defending international law on the ground, which was not adequately defended in the places intended for this purpose.

We have spoken about artificial intelligence, an issue I also raised at the Council of Europe summit before coming here. This issue is linked to democracy, because we do not realise how progress is moving quicker than we are and the risk we are taking by underestimating the immediate future, when we may find ourselves faced with a society in which progress no longer serves to optimise human capabilities, but rather risks replacing human capabilities, creating a problem of greater inequality, with democracies at risk of being weakened as a result: we have discussed this issue a lot over the last few days.

We have spoken about the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. As you saw, we visited the Peace Memorial commemorating what happened in Hiroshima and President Zelensky will also go there tomorrow. This is very symbolic as Japan and Ukraine are both nations that have experienced a nuclear disaster, and this also helps to convey a point of view that goes beyond certain somewhat superficial propaganda about the use of nuclear weapons. We have spoken about security and we have of course spoken a lot about peace. 

As I said, I believe this has been a success for Japan and I think Italy should be very satisfied. I am very satisfied with our contribution to the discussions, and the results we have achieved. We are considered responsible, credible and reliable partners.
I do not want to disclose the content of the conclusions to you as that would be disrespectful to Prime Minister Kishida, who currently holds the rotating Presidency of the G7. He will do this tomorrow but, clearly, a number of the things I have told you represent the key principles of our discussion and will also be included in the final document, as indeed they will be part of next year’s G7 programme, which I shall touch on later.

Many things are also the result of our contribution; we have obtained a number of important results. Clearly, the Conclusions will include the G7 members’ support for Ukraine for as long as necessary; the issue, as I mentioned to you, of relations with countries in the Global South - these relations must be collaborative in nature and not oppositional, cooperation must not be predatory, as we have said many times. Today, we also presented the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which is an infrastructure plan by the G7 countries to strengthen supply chains, investing in the Global South.

This is very similar to what we are calling our ‘Mattei Plan for Africa’, which we have had the opportunity to present and that has been met with a lot of consensus - our idea of how to cooperate with African countries, bringing investments in connection infrastructure, especially with regard to energy, and solving various problems together: the problem of energy supplies in Europe, but also the problem of how to help African countries to develop better and, therefore, the problem of migration because, after all, the most structural way to solve this problem is to defend the right, which is not guaranteed today, of many people not to have to flee their homes and their lands, abandoning their lives in search of a different and better life.

With regard to the issue of economic security, we have spoken about the matter of supply chains. I have been talking about this issue for a number of years now I think, even way before others began talking about it. We tried to explain how dangerous it was for us to depend so significantly on scenarios beyond our control. The choice is now being made to change the paradigm, to go back and understand what our strategic supply chains are, the ones we cannot do without. Strategies must be chosen that serve to strengthen not only our economy but also our security at international level.

After years, within the G7, we have once again raised the issue I mentioned regarding migration phenomena, human trafficking and how to tackle illegal migration. We have discussed Africa, Tunisia, which will be mentioned in the document; a major issue that Italy knows more about than all the others and that Italy is comprehensively raising. We care a lot about these issues, as indeed is the case for the issue of artificial intelligence, which I mentioned earlier.

I am of course satisfied with this, and I announced today that many of these issues will also be discussed at next year’s G7. As you know, Italy will hold the G7 Presidency in 2024. I was supposed to present the Italian Presidency during the last working session scheduled for tomorrow; Prime Minister Kishida kindly brought this forward today, giving me the opportunity to present our ideas for next year’s G7 to the other leaders.

I announced that the G7 will be held, reasonably speaking, in mid-June. We are waiting for the dates for next year’s European elections to be finalised (although I believe these are now more or less definite), which as you know will happen around the same time, so we have avoided any overlapping. It seems that the European elections should be held on 9 and 10 May, so we will be able to hold the G7 immediately afterwards.

We also announced that the next G7 in Italy will be held in Puglia. At a summit where the Global South will be a key focus, we will be taking the major world leaders to the south of Italy, and we have chosen Puglia because, from this point of view, it has symbolic meaning linked to its geographical position. Over the centuries, Puglia has acted as a bridge between East and West. As you will remember, Pope Francis also chose the capital of the Puglia region, Bari, for a historic meeting with the heads of the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches in 2018, which was an unprecedented ecumenical event. In essence, the Puglia region symbolises East and West embracing, and we believe this is also the best way to overcome the narrative of the West being on one side with the rest of the world on the other, which is clearly fuelled by adversary propaganda.

As I was saying to you, I revealed some of the priorities that the Italian Presidency will be focusing on to the other leaders: of course Ukraine, and whatever the context may be next year, we shall continue and intend to reaffirm the G7’s unity and our firm commitment to ensure the rules of international law are respected, which is the real issue at stake in the current conflict; economic security, and therefore looking forward based on the work we have done this year and understanding which and how many steps forward we have made; energy security; migration, which we will be making one of the key issues on the G7 agenda next year; attention to Africa, which has at times been culpably overlooked in the past, and we believe that Europe, and not only Europe, must go back to being more present, more cooperative with Africa.

I believe an excellent job has been done here and I am satisfied. I am satisfied with the bilateral meetings. I am satisfied with the way in which Italy is received and is carefully listened to, as indeed should be the case for a major international player that has clear positions on all the issues it deals with. I would have liked to remain tomorrow too, that would have been better, but we have done what we needed to do here and I believe our presence is now required somewhere else. The delegations are staying, the working sessions are being followed and we are continuing to do our job.

My thanks go to all the ambassadors and all the staff and Sherpas: we have been negotiating the documents, the conclusions, for months, as of course is always the case. Everyone has done an excellent job and I thank everyone; my thanks go to the staff and also to all of you.

[Courtesy translation]