Ambassador Massolo: “G7 in times of war, but Italy is doing well”
Agency interview Tell the diplomat that he has already led the G8 and G20 forum negotiations as a Sherpa
ROME – “For the G7 Italian presidency the balance is positive” says ambassador Giampiero Massolo, an expert in politics and international negotiations, who has already led as a “sherpa” on the occasion of other forums, G8 and G20.
THE LOOK OF THE “SHERPA”
The diplomat’s gaze ranges over the themes that will be at the center of the final declaration, to be necessarily adopted unanimously. And in the interview with the Dire agency, too much weight is not given, except in the perspective of the “election campaigns underway in some countries”, to controversies or media reports for example on relations between Italy and France > or on the topic of abortion.
“I believe that the balance must be positive” underlines Massolo, on the eve of the closing of the summit of heads of state and government in Borgo Egnazia. “As always in this type of summit there are topics on the agenda that are of an overall, global nature, and others that the rotating presidencies have particularly at heart; here we talked above all about wars, first of all the one in Ukraine”. The ambassador goes into detail. “There was a very significant and far from obvious step forward with the political agreement on the use of interest on Russian frozen funds to support Kiev” underlines Massolo. “In this way we want to guarantee a fairly significant flow of aid, 50 billion dollars a year, removing these resources from the discretion of the administrations in question”. At the summit of the heads of state and government there was but also something else. “The Italian presidency”, underlines the ambassador, “has been able to give a global dimension to the Mattei Plan for Africa, which starts from an innovative idea, which is to grow together and not to deal with the continent only when its problems they push on us.” According to Massolo, the key word in this regard was “synergy”, with the European Global Gateway and above all with an American-led G7 initiative, the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (Gpii). Another issue in the foreground is migration. “They constitute a global issue that affects everyone and not just Italy” is the ambassador’s premise. “The idea is to work together with countries of origin and transit and also to actively collaborate to prevent illegal human trafficking, which affects everyone.” In the background, also in a medium and long term perspective, the challenge of new artificial intelligence technologies. “It is the great problem and also the opportunity of the 21st century” highlights Massolo. “Here too the effort is to collaborate to move forward together in the most orderly way possible.” Contributing to the discussion in Borgo Egnazia is Pope Francis, “keynote speaker” at today’s dedicated session. According to the ambassador, “the Holy Father’s message is to put man at the center so that he is not dominated by the machine but, on the contrary, is the metronome of the machine”. A final comment is in response to a question on the difficulties in relations between some G7 member countries, including Italy and France, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Emmanuel Macron on different political and ideological positions . “Compared to the top it is not a central theme” underlines Massolo. “It rather has to do with electoral moments in various countries and on the other hand the G7 declarations are approved unanimously: no presidency can impose anything.”