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2024G7之梅洛妮和六個醜小鴨 – H. Roberts等
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索引：
dean：此處：(某行業或活動中的)元老、前輩、資深人物；系主任、學院院長；教會：(英格蘭聖公會的)主任牧師，(天主教的)樞機主教長
pugnacious：爭強好勝的，好鬥的
Tolkien fan：托爾金的粉絲；托爾金為《魔戒》和《哈比人》等奇幻故事的作者；(我相信)下文作者群使用此子標題在強調：梅洛妮近於普通人的一面
6 lame ducks and Giorgia Meloni: Meet the G7 class of 2024
This week’s gathering of G7 leaders in Italy looks more like the last supper than a display of Western power.
HANNAH ROBERTS/ZI-ANN LUM/KYLE DUGGAN/MATT BERG/ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL/TIM ROSS, 06/13/24
ROME — With the war in Ukraine well into its third year, far-right parties storming the power centers of Europe and the Middle East in flames, the democratic world urgently needs strong leadership from the G7 this week.
Dream on.
The G7 summit in the southern Italian coastal resort of Borgo Egnazia features arguably the weakest gathering of leaders the group has mustered for years. Most of the attendees are distracted by elections or domestic crises, disillusioned by years in office, or clinging desperately to power.
France’s Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Rishi Sunak are both fighting snap election campaigns they called in last-ditch efforts to reverse their flagging fortunes.
Germany’s Olaf Scholz was humiliated by far-right nationalists in last weekend’s European Parliament election and could soon be toppled himself.
Justin Trudeau, prime minister for nine years in Canada, has spoken openly about quitting his “crazy” job.
Japan’s Fumio Kishida is enduring his lowest personal ratings ahead of a leadership contest later this year.
And then there’s Joe Biden.
The 81-year-old U.S. president’s son, Hunter, was found guilty of gun charges on Tuesday, barely two weeks before his father’s first crucial debate with a resurgent Donald Trump in a presidential campaign the Democrat is in serious danger of losing.
“With the exception of Meloni, the leaders at the G7 summit are all pretty weak,” said Ivo Daalder, who served as U.S. ambassador to NATO under former President Barack Obama. “Trudeau is probably not going to win the next election. Biden has a tough election race. Scholz is weakened. Macron is weakened. Sunak is a ‘dead man walking,’ and Kishida has serious issues at home as well.”
Tolkien fan
Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, on the other hand, can’t stop winning.
Two years after coming to power as leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, the pugnacious, folksy Tolkien fan from a blue-collar district of Rome increased her party’s popular share of the vote in Sunday’s European election. She’s now poised to play a critical role shaping the future direction of EU policy in Brussels.
But Meloni doesn’t lead a superpower. On the international stage there’s only so much that Italy, the world’s ninth-largest economy, can do.
For months, under Italian stewardship, officials in Europe and the U.S. have been trying to hammer out their differences to announce a G7 plan to leverage Russian assets frozen in Western banks to provide a huge loan to Ukraine.
But on the eve of the summit there’s still no sign of a deal. Instead, European officials are expressing palpable anger at a U.S. proposal for sharing the burden on financing as unreasonably one-sided and a potentially massive liability for the EU.
Ukraine, which is still struggling to repel Russia’s invasion, needs the money urgently.
If the loan proposal can’t be signed off in Puglia, the talks risk dragging deep into summer and perilously close to November’s U.S. election. Few European officials are confident that if Trump wins, he will prove a reliable ally in Ukraine’s war against Russia. And regardless of the outcome, a presidential campaign reaching its democracy-altering climax won’t be a propitious moment to strike multilateral deals with America.
That doesn’t make a G7 deal any more likely. The men at the summit table all have reason to be preoccupied by domestic concerns, none more so than the French president, enmeshed in a snap election campaign of his own devising. “It’s going to be very hard for Macron to agree to the use of Russian assets before the fact that he has an election,” Daalder said.
Even his own party colleagues don’t want Macron’s face on their campaign posters or even to hear his voice on the radio, fearing he’s now so toxic that he’ll lead them to electoral disaster.
The dean
In Canada, Trudeau once aspired to be “dean” of the G7. Despite upheavals around the world, Trudeau’s office still believes the G7 functions “extremely effectively,” with one senior Canadian official saying: “I don’t think the band is on the verge of breaking up.”
But with Canada’s next election on the horizon, the sun could be setting on Trudeau too. At this moment he’s widely expected to lose in a landslide to his main challenger, firebrand Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
“We have seen around the world a rise of populist, right-wing forces in just about every democracy,” Trudeau said Monday in Quebec City in response to a reporter’s question about the rise of the right in France. “It is of concern to see political parties choosing to instrumentalize anger, fear, division, anxiety.”
In the U.K., Sunak is facing a historic defeat for his Conservative Party after 14 fractious years in power. Polls indicate the July 4 election will result in a center-left landslide for opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer, so whatever Sunak says in Puglia this week will likely draw polite smiles.
Biden is also heading to Italy amid a looming election and unfavorable polls. He’s having to make big promises to voters about what a second term could deliver with no guarantees he’ll be in office to execute them.
In Europe, most governments are less interested in Biden than they are preoccupied with the prospect of Trump returning to disrupt the world order once again.
Even if the leaders can’t make a breakthrough on funding for Ukraine, the summit marks an opportunity for their host, at least.
Meloni’s moment
According to Italian officials, speaking like others on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, Meloni will use the summit to further Italy’s interests. She’s also set to engage in talks with EU leaders over who should be handed the bloc’s top jobs, including the potential reappointment of Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission president. To secure a second term, von der Leyen needs both the backing of EU leaders like Meloni and a majority in the newly elected Parliament.
“We have emerged as the government most strengthened, going against the trend,” Meloni told RTL radio Monday. “Among the governments of big European countries, we are certainly the strongest. I don’t intend to use this result for myself but to use each vote for the center right to get results for Italians.”
The agenda that Meloni has set for the summit cleaves to Italy’s strategic interests — including Africa, migration and the Mediterranean. Her government aims to harness investment in African infrastructure to reduce the appeal of mass migration to Europe, while her team also wants to strike deals with African countries to block migration.
Meloni’s electoral success will help her draw support for her pet topics, said Giovanni Orsina, professor of political history at Luiss University in Rome. “With a G7 led by Italy and taking place in Italy, Meloni can enter with all her political strength.
While Rome’s influence is limited compared to major G7 players such as the U.S., Orsina suggested, Meloni is “certainly very strong now,” and “if she is skillful she can end up with an important international success, managing to get the issues important to her on the agenda.
“Not many leaders are able to gain votes after two years governing.”
Miles Herszenhorn contributed reporting.
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G7領袖就烏克蘭抗俄貸款達成共識 -- A. Shalal/T. Escritt
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這個貸款共識，以及拜登與澤倫斯基兩位日前簽定的十年安全協議，將使俄、烏戰爭至少持續到2025年1月。半年多的時間足以讓各種變數發酵、發霉。
騎虎難下，前景難料的苦日子，普丁還得熬下去。別的不說，此人神經還真他媽的大條。「人」是推動「歷史」發展的重要因素之一，由此可知；「唯『物』史觀」之難稱周全得一旁證。請參看《淺談瞿秋白《多餘的話》》第1節討論「史觀」的拙見。
G7 agrees on loan deal to support Ukraine with Russian assets
Andrea Shalal/Thomas Escritt, 06/14/24
BORGO EGNAZIA, Italy (Reuters) -Leaders of the Group of Seven major democracies agreed on an outline deal on Thursday to provide $50 billion of loans for Ukraine using interest from Russian sovereign assets frozen after Moscow invaded its neighbour in 2022.
The political agreement was the centrepiece of the opening day in southern Italy of the annual summit of G7 leaders, attended for a second successive year by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
He signed a new, long-term security accord with U.S. President Joe Biden after signing a 10-year security accord with Japan, with Tokyo promising to provide Kyiv with $4.5 billion this year -- underlining continued strong backing from the West.
Calling the frozen asset agreement a "significant outcome", Biden told reporters it was "another reminder to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that we're not backing down."
The G7 plan for Ukraine is based on a multi-year loan using profits from some $300 billion of impounded Russian funds, the bulk of which are blocked in the European Union.
The technical details will be finalised in the coming weeks, with the new cash expected to reach Kyiv by the end of this year thanks to contributions from all G7 states -- the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Italy.
"This is a very clear commitment that should embolden the Ukrainians to do what they need to to defend their independence and sovereignty," said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The aim of the deal is to ensure it can run for years regardless of who is in power in each G7 state - a nod to concerns that U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump may be much less sympathetic to Kyiv if he beats Biden in November's election, according to a person close to the talks.
Russia regards attempts by the West to take income from its frozen assets as criminal, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday, adding that Moscow's response would be very painful for the European Union.
STRUGGLES AT HOME
Many of the G7 leaders are struggling at home but looked to project confidence on the world stage as they confront an array of problems, including China's economic ambitions, the growth of artificial intelligence and turmoil in the Middle East.
The leaders expressed their concerns about the situation on the Israel-Lebanon border and endorsed U.S. efforts to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza war, according to a draft communique due to be released following the summit.
In addition, they called on Israel to refrain from a full-scale offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, "in line with their obligations under international law".
Western nations are also expected to voice both unanimous concern over China's industrial overcapacity, which they say is distorting global markets, and their determination to help African states develop their economies, diplomats said.
The G7 may have a very different complexion next year.
Biden faces an uphill battle to win re-election in November, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak looks certain to lose power in a national election next month, while French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved his country's parliament on Sunday after his party was trounced in the European vote.
All smiled broadly as they greeted Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni under a blazing Mediterranean sun at the entrance to the Borgo Egnazia resort where the summit is being held.
However, the display of unity was undermined late in the day, when Macron clashed with the anti-abortion Meloni over a push by Italy to remove any direct reference to abortion rights in the final communique.
More than a dozen outsiders will join the discussions on Friday, including the leaders of India, Brazil, Argentina, Turkey, Algeria and Kenya, while Pope Francis is due to speak about the risks and potential of artificial intelligence.
($1 = 0.9256 euros)
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer, Angelo Amante, Andrew Gray, Andrea Shalal, Thomas Escritt and John Irish; Writing by Crispian Balmer and Keith Weir; Editing by Christina Fincher, Ros Russell, Mark Heinrich and Daniel Wallis)
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