G7: Italy’s Meloni plays down abortion row with France’s Macron

Last year’s statement, which followed a summit held in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, said: “We reaffirm our full commitment to achieving comprehensive SRHR [Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights] for all, including by addressing access to safe and legal abortion and post abortion care.”

This year’s statement, by comparison, read: “We reiterate our commitments in the Hiroshima leaders’ communique to universal access to adequate, affordable, and quality health services for women, including comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.”

Ms Meloni said the reason for the omission of references to abortion in the newer text was completely normal and an attempt to stop the document becoming too repetitive.

“It usually happens that in the final documents of these sessions, things that are already taken for granted are not repeated,” she said.

“I sincerely believe that the controversy [around abortion] was totally contrived, and in fact it is a controversy that did not exist in the summit, that did not exist in our discussions, precisely because there was nothing to argue about.”

The G7 is a group of the world’s seven wealthiest countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – which hold meetings, form agreements and publish joint statements on global events.

Representatives of other countries including Turkey, India and Ukraine also attended the summit, which Italy has been hosting in the southern region of Puglia.

American officials told the New York Times that US President Joe Biden had pushed back after being told Ms Meloni did not want the words “abortion” and “reproductive rights” to be included in the statement.

Speaking to the Italian news agency Ansa, France’s President Macron said he was “sorry” that references to abortion had not been included.

“France has a vision of equality between women and men, but it’s not a vision shared by all the political spectrum,” Mr Macron said.

Ms Meloni said she thought it was “profoundly wrong” for Mr Macron to, as she put it, use the G7 summit to campaign for the upcoming French election.