00:00The gathering has just kicked off a short while ago with Giorgio Maloney
00:03welcoming in all the different heads of state and government and the head of the European
00:09Commission Ursula von der Leyen. They're now gathering around a meeting table and pretty
00:13much top of the agenda will be climate change but then it will be the wars in Gaza and also Ukraine
00:20and as you rightly said this summit is going to get a visit by the Ukrainian president Vladimir
00:25Zelensky. If there's going to be one agreement here at the G7 I think what all the leaders are
00:30hoping it's going to be is the one to give at least 50 billion dollars worth of money to the
00:37Ukrainians to get them back on track in trying to fight off Russian aggression in Ukraine. Now that
00:44money is going to be paid for out of 300 billion dollars worth of frozen assets in the United States
00:50and in the European Union. There have been discussions before this summit began on how that
00:55is going to be worked out. There's still one or two little problems that need to be solved
00:59but I think most of the delegates here are pretty optimistic that by the end of this summit that's
01:03to say on Saturday there will be a full agreement on handing over that money to Ukraine by the end
01:09of 2024. So I think if there's going to be one agreement that all the leaders are looking forward
01:13to it is that one and the other point about that is that it's also destined to try to show that
01:20there is unity amongst the world community in the face of this Russian aggression and President Biden
01:26before he arrived at the summit was saying that Vladimir Putin is going to have to look forward to
01:31many more sanctions being placed on Russia. I think with an eye to the fact that this 50 billion
01:37dollars that will be earmarked for Ukraine is going to boost the Ukrainian war effort in fighting off
01:42Russian aggression. Philip, this event will no doubt see Georgia Maloney bask in the limelight.
01:49She's one of the few leaders at the G7, one of the few G7 leaders to come out stronger
01:56domestically given what we saw happen in the European parliamentary vote on Sunday.
02:04Well if you look at how Georgia Maloney has been behaving over the past hour you can see she's
02:09having a field day, she was beaming with smiles, welcoming in all the world leaders, giggling with
02:15them, even taking selfies herself and almost dancing on the podium as they all came up and
02:20greeted her and then they had a family photo of all the G7 leaders with Georgia Maloney in the
02:26middle. So there's no doubt about the fact that she certainly has been galvanized by the increase
02:31in support for her brothers in Italy party during the European elections last weekend. But that's
02:37not the same unfortunately for the other leaders from the European Union who are present.
02:42The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has seen his party coming in third, knocked out by AFD, the
02:49far-right party in Italy. Emmanuel Macron of France has dissolved the National Assembly after
02:54a strong showing by the national rally, doubling its score against his candidate in the European
02:59elections. There's lots of uncertainty about what's going to happen in France within the next
03:03three weeks. There are also problems for Joe Biden who is struggling in the opinion polls
03:08face-to-face with Donald Trump who risks being re-elected in the United States this November.
03:13So a lot for these leaders to have to worry about back home as well as what is going on here at the
03:20G7 summit with all these very crucial issues over global warming, biodiversity, as we were talking
03:26before the war in Ukraine and also in Gaza. So this is going to be a very tough summit I think
03:31for them and a lot of worry I think all around about just where all of this is going to end up
03:36in the long run.
