Italy’s new PM Mario Draghi will join a G7 meeting called by his British counterpart. Vaccinations and health issues take centre stage, and the environment lingers at the horizon with the British-Italian led COP26 climate conference. Here’s why Italy should bet on both issues to regain stage centre
On Friday, G7 leaders will take part in a preliminary meeting called by the United Kingdom, the summit’s head for 2021. The stage is set for the international debut of Mario Draghi in his capacity as Italian prime minister, and it will also feature the leaders of France, Germany, Canada, the United States and Japan.
Boris Johnson, the British prime minister and summit host, is expected to incite his colleagues to step up their testing, tracing and vaccination game, increase availability and funding for the Covax scheme – intended to aid the vaccination efforts of developing countries – and create a sanitary infrastructure capable of developing future vaccines within 100 days.
Fresh out of Brexit, Mr Johnson is taking advantage of his country’s G7 chairmanship to enhance the image of his “global Britain.” Which is why – as Formiche.net can reveal – contacts between British and Italian institutions have multiplied recently. Italy is chair of the G20 for 2021 (and a Global Health Summit will take place in Rome this May) and the two countries are co-organisers of the COP26 climate conference, to be held in Glasgow in November.
There is appetite on the British side to collaborate with Mr Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank who closely followed the Brexit negotiations. The Italians, too, have everything to gain from the international influence and exposure they wield in 2021 via these summits. Both countries are betting on the rebirth of multilateralism to achieve their goals.
Decades of stagnant economic growth and a loss in international relevance have stifled Italy’s role on the world stage. But the country (together with Britain) has the chance to drive decisions to combat the global pandemic and build the reconstruction plan – which Mr Draghi specifically pored over in his inaugural speech –, which is inextricably linked to building a more sustainable, greener economy.
“Health and climate are priority, transnational matters, and thus naturally offer themselves to multilateral solutions, given that non-multilateral ones tend to be ineffective,” argued Riccardo Alcaro, research coordinator at the Italian institute for International Affairs (IAI), as he commented Mr Draghi’s agenda.
“In this sense, considering the impulse [President Joe] Biden wants to give to the American redeployment in the world – we’re thinking of [the US’] return to the WHO and the Paris agreements –, the dynamics of Transatlantic convergence blend well with the European interest in championing multilateralism – precisely on matters where Italy will be on the front line this year.”
Recent history and poor decision-making have side-lined Italy, the EU’s third-biggest economy, within the bloc’s power games. And yet, as Mr Alcaro points out, Italy’s international role is most effective when projected through – and influential in – the EU itself, if only because of the sheer geopolitical potency of the 27-nation bloc and its international relations network.
A founding member of the EU, Italy can now offer global leadership on the two most pressing issues of the entire world, health and climate. The convergence of possibilities and interest between Rome and London may also prove instrumental in enhancing the chances of ambitious transnational programmes, such as the Covax scheme and the green reconversion of the economy.
It is no coincidence that, according to Repubblica, Mr Draghi and Mr Johnson could soon have a bilateral meeting. Given the recent vaccine-related tensions between the UK and the EU, the two leaders could start laying the foundations for a better cooperation on health issues, something the British leader plans to uphold in Friday’s summit.
Italy’s plans for the near and far future, as presented in Mr Draghi’s vision for the country, melds perfectly with the EU’s wider ambitions and objectives. And because of Brexit, Italy will de facto represent the EU’s “green” power in the Cop26 conference, the biggest global stage for confrontation and collaboration on the climate crisis.
