G7 Summit Live Updates:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the first foreign trip of his third term, arrived in Italy early today to attend an outreach session of the 50th Group of Seven (G7) leaders’ summit. He held discussions with his UK counterpart Rishi Sunak, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
G7 session is expected to focus on issues relating to artificial intelligence (AI), energy, Africa and the Mediterranean. On reaching Italy, the Prime Minister said that he was “looking forward to engaging in productive discussions with world leaders”.
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G7 leaders’ summit is being held in the luxury resort of Borgo Egnazia in Italy’s Apulia region from June 13 to 15. The annual summit gathered representatives of Italy, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union (EU). The centrepiece of the opening day was a political agreement on an outline deal to provide $50 billion of loans for Ukraine using interest from Russian sovereign assets frozen after Moscow invaded its neighbour in 2022.
How has India’s participation in G7 summits been?
PM Modi will attend the summit for the fifth time in a row. India has attended 10 G7 summits in the past; this will be the 11th one. On the sidelines, he is also expected to hold bilateral meetings and discussions with the leaders of the G7, as also the Outreach Countries and international organisations.
“Together, we aim to address global challenges and foster international cooperation for a brighter future,” the PM said in a post on X after he landed. Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra told The Indian Express that India’s regular participation points to increasing recognition of the efforts the country has been making in trying to resolve global challenges. It is also a timely opportunity to follow up on outcomes of the G20 summit held under India’s presidency last year.
G7 Summit Live Updates: Modi, Macron discuss ways to further strengthen partnership
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron at the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Italy.
The two discussed ways to further strengthen the strategic partnership including in areas of defence, nuclear and space, and exchanged views on key global and regional issues.
G7 Summit Live Updates: After Macron and Sunak, Modi holds talks with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the G7 Summit underway in Italy’s Bari.
G7 Summit Live Updates: Modi meets Rishi Sunak, meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy next
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding discussions with United Kingdom Rishi Sunak at the G7 summit.
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Next, he is scheduled to meet Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
G7 Summit Live Updates: PM Modi meets Macron, meeting with UK’s Rishi Sunak next
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding bilateral talks with French President Emmanuel Macron at the G7 Summit.
Next, he is scheduled to meet UK PM Rishi Sunak.
G7 Summit Live Updates: Why are there outreach sessions at the summit?
The pope will be joined by 10 other heads of state and government, including the prime minister of India and the king of Jordan, as the G7 throws open its doors to outsiders to show it isn’t an aloof, exclusive club.
Besides his speech on AI, the Pope will hold multiple bilateral meetings, including with Biden, Zelenskyy and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
“It is a historic day. We will welcome the Holy Father. It is the first time for a pontiff at a G7. I am proud it will happen under the Italian presidency,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told reporters on Thursday.
G7 Summit Live Updates: EU Council chief says summit will tackle Ukraine, the Middle East, migration and Africa
European Council President Charles Michel says the Group of Seven summit would focus on four major challenges including financial support for Ukraine, the war in the Middle East, migration, and relations with Africa.
On Ukraine, Michel said at Thursday’s start of the Group of Seven summit that “we want to make decisions to provide more immediate financial support for Ukraine so that they can defend themselves.”
The G7 meeting opened with an agreement on a US proposal to back a $50 billion loan to Ukraine with frozen Russian assets.
Speaking of the ongoing war in Gaza, Michel said the main goals were an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, humanitarian access to Gaza and relaunching “a political track for making possible the two-state solution as soon as possible.”
G7 Summit Live Updates: US and EU on China | Agenda of the day
The US this week imposed fresh sanctions on China-based firms supplying semiconductors to Russia, amid worries over Beijing’s increasingly aggressive stance against Taiwan and run-ins with the Philippines over rival maritime claims.
“China is not supplying weapons (to Russia) but the ability to produce those weapons and the technology available to do it, so it is in fact helping Russia,” US President Joe Biden told reporters at the summit after signing a bilateral security pact with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
On Tuesday, the EU announced it would impose extra duties of up to 38.1% on imported Chinese electric cars from July, risking retaliation from Beijing, which vowed to take measures to safeguard its interests.
G7 Summit Live Updates: AI, energy, Africa to be in focus in PM Modi’s outreach session
The prime minister said he was glad that his first visit in the third consecutive term is to Italy for the G-7 Summit.
“During the discussions at the Outreach session, the focus will be on artificial intelligence, energy, Africa, and the Mediterranean,” Modi said.
“It will be an opportunity to bring greater synergy between the outcomes of the G20 Summit held under India’s Presidency and the forthcoming G7 Summit, and deliberate on issues which are crucial for the Global South,” he said.
Modi will have a bilateral meeting with Italian Prime Minister Meloni.
G7 Summit Live Updates: Russia’s take on the annual summit: Not invited, dismissed it as a sham
Russia, currently enagaged in a war with Ukraine, has described the idea of a summit to which it is not invited as “futile”, the AP reported.
Moscow casts its “special military operation” in Ukraine as part of a broader struggle with the West, which it says wants to bring Russia to its knees.
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The idea of a summit was originally floated after Zelenskiy presented a 10-point peace plan in late 2022.
Since then there has been a series of preparatory meetings.
The proposal had appeared to be gaining some traction, with China and some major countries from the “Global South” signalling interest at a meeting in Saudi Arabia last August.
However, the war in Gaza has sapped momentum and Moscow has sought to undermine the summit’s validity.
Meanwhile, China, along with Brazil, is pushing a separate peace plan for Ukraine that calls for the participation of both warring parties. Moscow has previously voiced its support for China’s efforts to end the conflict.
Kyiv has not hidden its frustration at China’s decision to skip the Swiss summit. Zelenskiy even accused Beijing of helping Russia to disrupt it, an extraordinary outburst against a global superpower with unrivalled influence over Moscow.
Given such headwinds and the entrenched differences between Ukraine and Russia, the summit is most likely to shy away from territorial issues and focus on parts of Zelenskiy’s plan that are broad enough to be palatable to most, if not all, participants. These include the need to guarantee food security, nuclear safety, freedom of navigation and prisoner exchanges, officials said.
G7 Summit Live Updates: How could the loan sanctioned by G7 be used and how soon can it happen?
Although many details still need to be worked out, G7 members – the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Britain – and the European Union (EU) are expected to contribute to the loan, with cash to reach Kyiv by the end of the year. It will be up to technical experts to work through the details.
Ukraine will be able to spend the money in several areas, including for military, economic and humanitarian needs and reconstruction, the US official said. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the goal is “to provide the necessary resources to Ukraine now for its economic energy and other needs so that it’s capable of having the resilience necessary to withstand Russia’s continuing aggression.”
Another goal is to get the money to Ukraine quickly.
The French official, who was not authorized to be publicly named according to French presidential policy, said the details could be worked out “very quickly and in any case, the $50 billion will be disbursed before the end of 2024.”
Beyond the costs of the war, the needs are great.
The World Bank’s latest damage assessment of Ukraine, released in February, estimates that costs for reconstruction and recovery of the nation stand at $486 billion over the next 10 years.
The move to unlock Russia’s assets comes after there was a long delay in Washington by Congress in approving military aid for Ukraine.
G7 Summit Live Updates: Pope Francis will be the first pontiff to address a G7 venue
Francis will address G7 leaders on Friday at their annual gathering in southern Italy — a first for a pope. He intends to use the occasion to join the chorus of countries and global bodies pushing for stronger guardrails on AI following the boom in generative artificial intelligence kickstarted by OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.
The Argentine pope used his annual peace message this year to call for an international treaty to ensure AI is developed and used ethnically.
G7 Summit Live Updates: Why China will be key issue on Day 2?
While Ukraine dominated the first day of talks, G7 members – the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Britain – and the European Union (EU) are expected to discuss China’s excess industrial capacity and its support for Russia on Friday.
However, there are differences within the G7 over how to counter Chinese state subsidies, with Europe anxious to avoid an all-out trade war with Beijing.
G7 Summit Live Updates: In line with G7 agreement, why not just give Ukraine frozen assets directly?
That’s much harder to do.
For more than a year, officials from multiple countries have debated the legality of confiscating the money and sending it to Ukraine.
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The US and its allies immediately froze whatever Russian central bank assets they had access to when Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022. That basically was money being held in banks outside Russia.
The assets are immobilized and cannot be accessed by Moscow, but they still belong to Russia.
While governments can generally freeze property or funds without difficulty, turning them into forfeited assets that can be used for the benefit of Ukraine requires an extra layer of judicial procedure, including a legal basis and adjudication in a court.
The EU instead has set aside the profits being generated by the frozen assets. That pot of money is easier to access.
Separately, the US this year passed a law called the REPO Act — short for the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act — that allows the Biden administration to seize $5 billion in Russian state assets in the US and use them for the benefit of Kyiv. That arrangement is being worked out.
G7 Summit Day 2 Live Updates: Has there been any disagreement noted among the world leaders so far?
Divisions were noted to have emerged over the wording of the summit’s final declaration on Day 1.
The disagreement came up over the inclusion of a reference to abortion. Italy demanded the removal of a reference to “safe and legal abortion” from the final G7 statement, leading to a dispute with French President Emmanuel Macron. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni accused Macron of attempting to score political points ahead of the upcoming French elections.
G7 Summit Day 2 Live Updates: Leaders tackle the issue of migration
On Day 2 of the G7 Summit in Italy, leaders are said to be turning their attention to migration, seeking ways to combat trafficking and increase investment in countries from where migrants start out on “often life-threatening journeys”.
The day’s agenda for the gathering in Italy’s southern Puglia region includes topics such as financial support for Ukraine, the war in Gaza, artificial intelligence and climate change, as well as China’s industrial policy and economic security.
Migration is of particular interest to summit host Italy, which lies on one of the major routes into the European Union for people fleeing war and poverty in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Right-wing Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, known for her hard-line stance on the issue, has been keen to increase investment and funding for African nations as a means of reducing migratory pressure on Europe.
G7 Summit Live Updates: G7 leaders agree to lend Ukraine billions backed by Russia’s frozen assets. Here’s how it will work:
Where would the money come from?
Most of the money would be in the form of a loan mostly guaranteed by the U.S. government, backed by profits being earned on roughly $260 billion in immobilized Russian assets. The vast majority of that money is held in European Union nations.
A French official said the loan could be “topped up” with European money or contributions from other countries.
A U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the agreement said the G7 leaders’ official statement due out Friday will leave the door open to trying to confiscate the Russian assets entirely.
G7 Summit Live Updates: What PM Modi’s participation at the summit means for India?
“At G7 also, we have always brought the issues of the Global South to the forefront” — Here’s what India’s Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said:
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– India’s regular participation at the G7 summit clearly points to increasing recognition and contribution of the efforts that India has been making in trying to resolve global challenges, including those of peace, security, development and environment preservation.
– It acquires particular salience in context of India’s recently held, not so recent, presidency of the G20, where India took a leading role in building global consensus on a number of contentious issues.
– Prime Minister’s participation in the G7 summit would also provide a timely opportunity to follow up on outcomes of the G20 summit held under India’s presidency last year, and deliberate on issues which are significant for the Global South.
G7 Summit Live Updates: What happened on Day 1 of summit?
On the opening day of the summit, Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) agreed on an outline deal to provide $50 billion of loans for Ukraine using interest from Russian sovereign assets frozen after Moscow invaded its neighbour in 2022.
It was attended for a second successive year by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He signed a new, long-term security accord with US 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.
Although many details still need to be worked out, G7 members – the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Britain – and the European Union (EU) are expected to contribute to the loan, with cash to reach Kyiv by the end of the year.
G7 Summit Live Updates: PM Modi lands in Italy, share first pictures from Italy
“Landed in Italy to take part in the G7 Summit. Looking forward to engaging in productive discussions with world leaders. Together, we aim to address global challenges and foster international cooperation for a brighter future,” the PM said in a post on X.
Along with the outreach session, the Indian Prime Minister who is on his first foregin trip since assuming office for a third straight term will also hold bilateral talks with the G7 leaders including Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni.
Good evening !
Welcome to the live blog!
Today we track the 50th G7 Summit where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to attend an outreach session.
The session will be focused on issues relating to artificial intelligence, energy, Africa and the Mediterranean.
Stay tuned for latest updates.
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