G7 leaders put on good show of unity, but look fragile at home

Group took strong lines on confronting Russia and China, but is the its relevance in today’s world on the wane?

Fasano, Italy – This year’s G7 summit bore the hallmarks of a fragile club, yet one that still manages to put up a good fight when it comes to shielding Western interests.

On Saturday, the leaders of what were once the wealthiest countries in the world concluded the three-day G7 summit in Borgo Egnazia, a luxury resort nestled in the hills of Italy’s southern region of Puglia. But the group’s authority in global politics was overshadowed by trouble back home for most of its members.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s party took such a pounding at the European Union parliament elections last week that he called snap elections. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholtz’s Social Democratic Party also suffered in the EU elections to the point that critics have called on him to follow Macron’s example. United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is already heading to the polls in early July for an election that most predict will see the end of his government, in a landslide victory for opposition party Labour, while the approval rating of Canada’s Prime Minister Justine Trudeau has plunged to a dismal 38 percent. And in Japan, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida‘s party has been mired in the throes of a political crisis since last year with some labelling the leader as Japan’s most unpopular premier since 1947.

Above all, the spectre of November’s United States presidential election has loomed large over this G7 summit, with the prospect of a comeback for Donald Trump, a former president who is openly sceptical of Washington’s multilateral agreements.

Despite the domestic challenges faced by G7 leaders, however, the group still managed to pull together a strong message of unity when it came to addressing the threats they see as undermining Western stability. Most significant was the announcement on Thursday that it will draw on frozen Russian assets to make a $50bn loan to Ukraine to support its efforts in the continuing war with Russia.