How to watch the G7 summit like a pro
EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France ― Leaders from the G7 group of rich countries and beyond are meeting from Monday to Wednesday in the lakeside thermal town of Evian-les-bains.
While most of their conversations in the five-star art déco “Hotêl Royal” will be behind closed doors, there’s a lot we already know about the next three days.
Here is everything you wanted to know but didn’t dare to ask about the June 15-17 G7 summit.
Who is there?
Heads of state and government of the G7 countries (France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.) and the heads of the European Commission and the European Council, for sure!
Ukrainian President Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the presidents or prime ministers of South Korea, Kenya and Egypt will also be there, as well as leaders from Persian Gulf countries including Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
The summit will have a bitter-sweet taste for French President Emmanuel Macron as it is the last G7 he will attend (and chair) for a while at least. He is leaving office in spring next year as he can’t run for a third consecutive mandate.
What’s on the menu?
Action will kick off on Monday with a bilateral meeting between Macron and U.S. President Donald Trump and start for everyone in the evening with a dinner on “major international challenges.” On Monday afternoon, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa will give a joint press conference.
On Tuesday morning, leaders will discuss support for Ukraine with Zelenskyy, before moving on to a session on the crisis in the Middle East with leaders of Gulf countries, and then discuss international solidarity before attending a gala dinner.
On the last day, after a discussion on economic growth, leaders will have a lunch with artificial intelligence heavyweights including Sam Altman and Arthur Mensch and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. It will come shortly after Anthropic disabled all access to its latest AI models after the American government ordered it to suspend access for non-U.S. users.
Macron will wrap up the Evian summit in the early afternoon with a press conference. Other leaders, including Trump, are also expected to speak to the press.
The real action often happens away from the official roundtables, with bilateral meetings like the one between Macron and Trump on Monday, the U.S. president’s sessions with leaders of Gulf countries, and a Monday meeting between Costa, von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Will Trump stay this time?
Last year, in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Trump abruptly left the G7 summit to deal with a deepening Iran-Israel conflict. The specter of a Trump early departure this week has been haunting Macron, who multiplied efforts to make sure that the U.S. president stays in France.
That’s also one of the reasons why the French president is hosting Trump for dinner on Wednesday evening in an unmatchable venue: the opulent Palace of Versailles. While the dinner has been in the works for some time, the confirmation only came on Saturday. Macron’s office said the banquet is meant to celebrate the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence in the place where the treaty recognizing it was signed.
What can policy nerds expect?
Similar to the summit in Canada last year, the French presidency is aiming to get leaders to sign off on seven thematic policy declarations rather than on one overarching communiqué. Geopolitical talks on Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East will, however, be reflected in a statement by the French presidency.
- No recipe to tame China. Addressing global macroeconomic imbalances is one of the leitmotifs of Macron’s G7 summit. But don’t expect any easy fix on that during the summit because that would mean convincing China, not a G7 member, to change its economic model and stop flooding the West with subsidized exports. While the topic will be discussed Monday evening in Evian, Macron last week already invited Chinese officials to a video call which didn’t seem to fix much, as we reported here.
- Critical minerals will be a priority and will be the object of a dedicated declaration, but it’s unclear what the deliverables could be. Last month, G7 trade ministers discussed the possibility of creating a new permanent format to discuss access to critical raw materials.
- Another declaration will cover the protection of children online, a topic that fueled some transatlantic disagreement during recent G7 ministerial meetings. Macron has been the biggest supporter of a social media ban for kids under 15 years old, which should enter into force in France later this year. Canada also just announced a social media ban for under-16s and the U.K. is expected to join them.
- Expect the economic consequences of the war in the Middle East and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to also be on the agenda, especially during Tuesday’s lunch with Gulf countries. With high energy prices and trade disruptions, Europeans are paying a heavy price for the crisis in the Middle East and have put pressure on the U.S. to stop the war in previous G7 meetings.
- Other declarations are expected to cover research to fight cancer and encouraging investment in countries that are considered less attractive for economic security reasons. Coordinating efforts to combat drug trafficking and tackle migration are also expected to be discussed.
Isobel Hamilton and Esther Webber contributed to this report from London.
