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The Apulia Summit's Strong Performance

John Kirton, G7 Research Group
June 17, 2024

The G7's Apulia Summit, held at Borgo Egnazia in Italy from June 13 to 15, 2024, has produced a strong performance. This was led by its very strong performance on its defining issue of countering Russa's war against Ukraine, by its strong progress on the Indo-Pacific region, by its significant progress on energy and Africa and by its substantial progress on climate change, the environment, food security and artificial intelligence (AI). It also made solid advances on development, migration and the economy, but only small ones on the conflicts in the Middle East.

Russia-Ukraine

Apulia's very strong performance of Russia's war against Ukraine was led by the deal, announced on the first day, of an additional $50 billion for Ukraine, raised by a loan backed by the present and future interest on the Russian assets frozen by G7 members when Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. The $50 billion would get to Ukraine by the end of 2024, before the next US president and Congress take power in early 2025. The loan would be backed not by the European Union or the United States alone, but by all G7 members. The smallest G7 member, Canada, which held very few of the frozen assets and had only 5% of the G7's gross domestic product, was the first to announce its contribution to the loan: $5 billion, or 10% of the total.

The day before, on June 12, the United States, United Kingdom and Canada unleashed a new round of sanctions of Russia that finally froze its financial system, so no Russians could get their money back from their banks. The value of the ruble plunged from 80 to 200 to the US dollars. This showed that sanctions worked, and did so severely and swiftly indeed.

On June 13, US president Joe Biden and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky announced a security cooperation agreement, as other G7 and EU members had in the weeks before. The US one would last for 10 years and give Ukraine access to US advanced weaponry, and thus many more of the F-16 fighter jets at the top of Zelensky's wish list. It was backed by the $61 billion that the US Congress, in a bipartisan deal, had finally authorized a few weeks before.

Africa

Apulia's significant performance on energy and Africa started later that first day, when most G7 leaders, led by Italian host Giorgia Meloni and Joe Biden, announced the next stage of the Global Partnership for Infrastructure Investment, a ten-year, $600 billion partnership launched at the G7's Elmau Summit in 2022. It had already mobilized $60 billion, and now added many new contributions from G7 members' development finance institutions and the development banks that they controlled. This money was focused on Africa, while including other regions of the world.

Indo-Pacific

The next morning, on June 14, G7 leaders addressed the Indo-Pacific region, producing a surprisingly strong performance here. They united against China's oversupply of electric vehicles, batteries and other green products that threatened to bankrupt G7 competitors and the jobs they produced as their Chinese state-subsidized competitors dumped their cheap products into G7 markets. G7 leaders also agreed to sanction the Chinese banks that finance Russian president Vladimir Putin's war machine when the Russian banks directly could not, and to stop the export to China of dual-use products and technologies that could be exported to China and then passed on to Russia for military use.

Artificial Intelligence

On the afternoon of June 14, the leaders addressed AI. The discussion began with an extensive statement by Pope Francis, the first pope invited to attend a G7 summit since its start in 1975. The Pope started by identifying AI's benefits for developing medicines and other needed goods, before moving to state its dangers and the need for principles to guide its development and use, based on the concept of "algorethics." He ended by putting politics first, saying politics was the highest form of charity and love, and calling on politicians to govern for common – not national – goals, for the long term rather than for immediate advantage, and for a fundamental transformation in how the world works now.

Middle East

On the Middle East's many conflicts, only small advances came. On the centrepiece subject of Biden's proposed comprehensive peace plan, G7 leaders again agreed to support it, but did nothing that convinced the Hamas terrorist group that attacked Israel on October 7 to support it as well. The absence of Saudi Arabia's crown prince, who abruptly cancelled his trip to Apulia after accepting his invitation to participate, did not help. Yet G7 members did provide much more humanitarian relief, led by the United States, which, just before the summit, added $404 million to the $1.8 billion it had given since 2021.

Climate Change

On climate change, G7 leaders agreed to hasten their shift away from fossil fuels before 2023, saying in a draft "We will transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating actions in this critical decade, to achieve net-zero by 2050 in keeping with the best available science." They also promised "to phase out existing unabated coal power generation in our energy systems during the first half of the 20230s" just repeating what their energy ministers had agreed in April.

Dimensions of Performance

The strong performance of the Apulia Summit is reflected in its outcomes along the six key dimensions of performance, as follows.

Domestic Political Management

In Apulia's domestic political management, all G7 leaders attended the summit, and stayed from its start until the end of the collective sessions on June 14. The third day, June 15, allowed time for bilateral meetings.

The Apulia G7 Leaders' Communiqué contained 14 compliments to six members, for 75% of them. They were led by Italy with seven, followed by France and the EU with two each, and the US, Japan and Germany with one each.

Deliberation

In Apulia's public deliberation, G7 leaders issued one fully collective document: the Apulia G7 Leaders Communiqué. It contained 19,795 words in 268 paragraphs covering 26 sections. This was the 11th highest number of words among the 50 regular summits from 1975 to 2024 and almost double the previous average of 10,755 words per summit (see Appendix A). The Apulia communiqué was accompanied by three documents not issued in all the leaders names: The G7 Meeting with Outreach Countries and International Organizations, a joint statement on Energy for Growth in Africa, and the G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment Side Event Co-Chair Statement.

The proportion of the communiqué's sections, identified by their titles, was led by "Energy, Climate and Environment" with 3,110 words for 15.7% of the total (see Appendix B). This was followed "Steadfast support to Ukraine" with 1,557 words and the "Indo-Pacific" with 1,559 words, for 7.9% each. Then came "Global Economy and Finance" with 1,212 words for 6.1%, "Sustainable Development, Food Security and PGII" with 1,127 words for 5.7%, and "Economic Resilience and Economic Security" with 1,066 words for 5.4%. This showed a very broad agenda, covering the ecological, security and economic domains, with the natural environment coming first. It was a distinct change from the nine priorities the Italian host had identified from the start.

The subjects, by the number of words in the paragraphs that contained them, throughout the communiqué were led by gender with 2,178 words for 11% of the communiqué, compared to only 633 words (3.2%) just in the section titled "Gender Equality."

Direction Setting

In its principled and normative direction setting, by affirmations of the G7's distinctive foundational missions of promoting democracy and human rights, there were 81 such affirmations, the ninth highest in the G7 summit's 50 years. The Apulia communiqué contained 30 references to democracy and 51 to human rights.

Decision Making

The Apulia Summit produced at least 469 commitments (see Appendix C). This was the third highest in the G7 summit's 50-year history, and more than three times as much as the average of 148 commitments at each summit from 1975 to 2023. This Apulia decisional performance had been surpassed only by the 545 commitments at Elmau in 2022 and the 698 at Hiroshima in 2023.

Apulia's 469 commitments were led by those on regional security with 65 for 14% of the total, followed by energy with 52 for 11%, trade with 51 for 11%, development with 44 for 9%, migration and refugees with 34 for 7%, and the digital economy with 33 for 7%.

The environment had 24 for 5%, and climate change 11 for 2%. Together energy, climate and environment had 87 commitments for only 18% of the total.

The section entitled "Artificial Intelligence, Science, Technology and Innovation" contained 21 commitments on AI, almost as many as the 24 in the Charlevoix Summit's communiqués from 2018. Outside this section in the Apulia communiqué, there were additional commitments on AI, with one in the section on health and three in the preamble, for 24 overall.

Development of Global Governance

In the institutional development of global governance G7 leaders made 122 references to institutions outside the G7 and 21 references to those inside the G7. The total of 143 was composed of 85% to outside ones and 15% to inside ones.

Conclusion

The Apulia Summit also set a strong foundation for the G7 Summit that Canada announced it will host in Kananaskis, Alberta, in 2025. To the 23 inherited commitments due in 2025 produced at previous G7 summits, Apulia added 13, to create a new total of 36 (see Appendix D).

The Apulia additions were led by climate change and the environment, with three each, digitalization with two, and Ukraine, food and agriculture, development, and health with one each. They coincided well with the two top priorities Canada identified for its Kananaskis Summit in 2025 in a statement by the Prime Minister's Office on June 14, 2024, and those Prime Minister Trudeau had brought to Apulia in 2024.

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Appendix A: G7 Summit Performance, 1975–2024 ↩

Notes:

• n/a = not available.
• Grade: Kirton scale is A+ Extremely Strong, Striking, Standout, Historic; A Very Strong; A− Strong; B+ Significant; B Substantial; B− Solid; C Small; D Very Small; F Failure (including made things worse).
  
• Domestic political management: # communiqué compliments = the number of favourable references to G7/G8 members by name. Spread = number of G7/G8 members complimented.
  
• Deliberation: # days = the duration of the summit; # statements = number of official statements issued in the leaders' name; # words = number of words contained in the official statements.
  
• Direction setting: # affirmations of G7/G8 core values of open democracy, individual liberty and human rights contained in official documents.
  
• Decision making: # commitments contained in the official documents.
  
• Delivery: Compliance: compliance with selected commitments assessed as follows: 1975–1989 assessed elsewhere by George von Furstenberg and Joseph Daniels; 1990–1995 assessed elsewhere by Ella Kokotsis; 1996– assessed by the G7 Research Group. # commitments: number of commitments assessed.
  
• Development of global governance: # ministerials created = number of institutions at the ministerial level created; # official-level groups created = number of institutions at the officials level created. Institutions created at or by the summit, or during the hosting year, at least in the form of having one meeting take place.
  
• Participation: # members = number of leaders of full members, including those representing the European Community from the start; Russia started as a participant in 1991 and became a full member in 1998 until its last participation in 2013; the G4 met in 1974 without Japan and Italy and later that year the G6 (without Canada) met. # participating countries = number of full members plus number of leaders from other countries. # participating international organizations = number of heads of international organizations.

Appendix B: Word Count for the G7 Apulia Leaders' Communiqué↩

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Appendix C: Apulia G7 Leaders' Communiqué Commitments ↩

Identified and coded by Brittaney Warren, June 16, 2024.

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Appendix D: 2025 Commitments in Apulia G7 Leaders' Communiqué ↩

Mentions of 2025: 12, Mentions of "next year": 1

We will build on the Japan-Ukraine Conference for Promotion of Economic Growth and Reconstruction held in Tokyo on 19 February and the Ukraine Recovery Conference held on 11-12 June in Berlin and we look forward to the next Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome in 2025. (Ukraine)

We will foster multi-stakeholder engagement and innovation, including with multilaterals, the private sector and philanthropies, and welcome in particular the 2025 Paris Nutrition for Growth Summit. (Food-agriculture)

We underline that this is a collective effort and further actions from all countries, especially major economies, are required in order to peak global GHG by 2025 at the latest and achieve net-zero by 2050. (Climate change)

We reaffirm our commitment to eliminate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 or sooner and will report in 2025 on progress made. We call on others to do the same. (climate change)

We recall our previous commitment to increase our national and international funding for nature by 2025, and to substantially and progressively increase the level of financial resources from all sources including by providing support to the Global Environment Facility. (Climate change)

We note that Target 19 aims at mobilizing at least USD 200 billion per year by 2030 for biodiversity from all sources, including USD 20 billion per year by 2025 and USD 30 billion per year by 2030, through international financial resources. We are all still concerned about incentives, including subsidies, harmful to biodiversity, and call upon all relevant organizations to continue collaborating with us, including by assisting in identifying such incentives, and we are all working to fulfil our respective applicable commitments, including, inter alia, to identify these incentives by 2025, and redirect or eliminate them, while scaling-up positive incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity by 2030 at the latest, taking initial steps without delay. (Environment-biodiversity)

We will work towards a successful UNOC3 in 2025 in this regard.

We will build on the outcomes of the AI Seoul Summit and upcoming milestones, including this year's UN Summit of the Future and the AI Action Summit in 2025. (Digital-AI)

We reaffirm our support for the Program of Action to Advance Responsible State' Behaviour in the Use of ICTs in the context of international security, as the permanent and action-oriented mechanism to hold discussions on cybersecurity at the UN from 2025 onwards. (digital)

In this regard, we welcome the successful replenishment of the Asian Development Fund (AsDF14) support a successful International Development Association (IDA21) replenishment and commit to work toward a successful replenishment of the African Development Fund next year (AfDF17). (Development)

We look forward to the Global Disability Summit to be held in Berlin in 2025. (Health)

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