G7 may face uphill battle in forging summit consensus

TAORMINA, Italy - As the 43rd yearly summit of the Group of Seven (G7) is to be start Friday, analysts say it could be an uphill battle for the summit to reach consensus over key issues such as migration, security, and climate change.

Tensions between Britain and the EU following last year's Brexit referendum, the protectionist and pro-carbon fuels stance of recently elected US President Donald Trump, and the rise of populist, eurosceptic sentiment across Europe spell a tough time ahead for leaders at the Taormina meeting.

"The raison d'etre of the G7 is its ability to make decisions and coordinate policies swiftly," according to Leuven Center for Global Governance Studies Director Jan Wouters.

"This is no longer the case, as recent elections in Europe and the United States have shown," he said, writing for the University of Toronto's G20 Research Group, which monitors the extent to which leaders follow up on their summit commitments.

"If the like-mindedness on which it was always premised lapses due to the Trump administration" and to frictions between Britain and the EU over Brexit, "the G7 may face daunting challenges in the coming years," he concluded.

Meanwhile at a NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday, Trump linked migration to Monday's terrorist attack in the British city of Manchester, in which a suicide bomber killed at least 22 lives.

This puts him at odds with Italy, which says that migration and terrorism must not be equated.

Since it began rescuing people off unseaworthy human trafficking boats in the Mediterranean in 2014, Italy has pushed the refugee and migrant crisis squarely onto the EU agenda, and has called for massive investments in Africa as a way to tackle the root causes of the exodus.

"At work for G7 Taormina on security, migrations, climate, Africa relations," Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni tweeted Thursday, outlining the key points Italy wishes to table at the two-day summit that kicks off in the Sicilian town of Taormina on Friday.