It may be “whipped cream”, but the risk is that it will become so sour as to ruin the entire summit. The ‘abortion case’ continues to hold sway on the first day of the G7’s work, after having caused an earthquake the day before, and so the Italian presidency decides to take action and tell its version of the facts. Without hiding the irritation towards those who, according to the Italians, triggered the fuse, with the risk of obscuring a result deemed “historic”that is to say the agreement reached on Russian assets and the solidarity fund for Ukraine. “A result of which I am proud”, claimed Giorgia Meloni, noting that the “political” agreement reached was “not at all a given”: the technical issues will have to be resolved by the European Council at the end of June and by the meeting of finance ministers, but the green disc of the leaders is there, lit among the centuries-old olive trees of Borgo Egnazia.
It was an expected and desired result, the objective to be achieved to ensure that the Italian-led G7 would become a success. But what has now become a case – Italy’s alleged step backwards on the desire to strengthen the right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy – risks overshadowing it. France is in the dock: already yesterday a certain irritation was evident at the Elysée’s move forward on the agreement reached by the Big Ones on the 50 billion to be allocated to Ukraine. But the issue with the abortion issue is full, also because, as presidential sources explain, the case “is artfully assembled”, as if it were, in fact, “cream”. Not for Emmanuel Macron who, on Thursday evening from the San Domenico club in Borgo Egnazia, put his face to it and underlined the distances with Rome, expressing “regret” that the word ‘abortion’ is missing in the text of the conclusions, but “you know the position of France. We don’t make the same choices, France has included in the Constitution the right to abortion, the freedom of women to dispose of their own bodies. We don’t have the same feelings with Italy.”
For the prime minister it’s really too much. So far she has remained calm, but to the attack she can only respond with a foil blow. Stopped by journalists before she reached the Castello Svevo in Brindisi for the dinner hosted by President Sergio Mattarella, brands the controversy as “totally specious”. But he dares more: “There is no reason to argue about issues that we have already agreed on for some time. And I believe it is profoundly wrong, in difficult times like these, to campaign using a precious forum like the G7”, he adds with a clear reference to those who emerged from the European elections with broken bones.
Frost between the two at the Castello Svevo in Brindisi
For Meloni, the controversy that has arisen around abortion is “specious” because “the conclusions of Borgo Egnazia recall those of Hiroshima, in which we already approved last year the need to guarantee that abortion is safe and legal. It is a fact established and no one has ever asked to take steps back on this, in fact, if they do not introduce new topics, in order not to be unnecessarily repetitive, they simply recall what has already been declared in previous summits”.
This is what sources from the Italian presidency were at pains to explain in the afternoon, clarifying what was hidden behind the ‘mess’. With the dossier arriving on the Sherpas’ table late at night, the desire of some countries, France in the lead, to take a step further than what was done in Hiroshima. But Italy, at the negotiating table, “never said ‘we don’t want it’ – the same sources assure – it simply demanded that, if the text were modified, it be balanced with other issues. It was 3 in the morning – the narrative – and at that point we decided to stop at the commitments” undertaken in Japan, “reconfirming them”. Never said “let’s remove the commitment, but only ‘if it is added, we also want to have our say to balance the text'”.
The contents of the negotiation, however, leave the room of the Borgo Egnazia resort where the text is filed, bounce around Brussels, reach the press room at the Fiera del Levante in Bari. And soon the case mounts, so much so that even the Councilor for US national security, Jake Sullivan, does not hide his disappointment at the alleged whitewash on the word abortion. President Biden, he remarked in the morning, “always talks about human rights in all his interactions, both with friends and adversaries, and there will be no changes in the next two days”. Therefore, no step backwards compared to Hiroshima, confirm Italian sources. But with Macron the frost has returned. When the French President arrives at the Castello Svevo for dinner, hosted by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, Meloni glares at him with icy glances, a tight smile accompanies the kiss on the hand with which Macron tries to overcome the incident. The Prime Minister is unlikely to forgive him for the ‘trip’: “The Italians received compliments for their organisation, mediation capacity and content, but this affair risked overshadowing everything”. Really too much for Meloni. (from the correspondent Ileana Sciarra)
