A touch of melancholy and tragedy surrounds the G7 summit in Bari, Italy. This is mainly due to Joe Biden, the US President.
It could be so beautiful here on the Adriatic coast at the southernmost tip of Italy. The weather is brilliant, a light wind is blowing over the hills. The heads of state and government of the seven supposedly most important western industrial countries have retreated to a luxury resort to sort out a few things in peace and quiet. A retreat of power, if you will. Two days’ break from the drudgery of everyday government life, peace and quiet, isolation.
It works. Or is it?
Perhaps you should know that it is not so easy for a reporter to write anything about summits of this kind, because even though you traveled with the Chancellor, you can hardly claim to be close to them. Like the G7 leaders, you are also in Apulia. But that is about as close as you get.
And then suddenly the Chancellor is faced with a
The luxury hotel where the powerful meet, sleep and negotiate is well-protected in the hills, eight kilometers from where the German press is gathered and awaits events – yes, that’s probably what you should call it, because not much happens here. Now and again a few snippets of information from the G7 command center trickle into your inbox. An email with background information. A paper with content that has apparently been agreed upon.
Otherwise you sit under olive trees, seek shade, communicate with colleagues at home. And then suddenly the Chancellor is standing in front of you.
Three minutes of statement. Good round, important decisions, Putin must be stopped. Then the Chancellor’s convoy rushes back towards the luxury resort and the wind blows through the olive trees on the grounds. The landlady serves white wine and beer. World politics?
What we notice is that there is one man who is causing concern here, in Apulia, in the Western Hemisphere, and perhaps even beyond: Joe Biden, the American president. For some time now, the appearances of the most powerful man in the world have been causing a moderate sense of unease. Biden is 81 years old and has become very frail. Which would not be a big deal if he had not been given the task of protecting the world from a Trump dictatorship in the upcoming presidential election. It would be a good thing, one might say, if he were at full strength for this supposed final battle for democracy.
Horrible pictures of Joe Biden
Instead, horrible pictures of him are doing the rounds these days, short videos, wild scenes. Biden stumbles. Biden confuses people. Biden forgets sentences. Much of it is taken out of context, technically altered, there are explanations, exculpatory details, but the snippets are textbook examples of how debates get out of hand these days due to digital reproduction, how easy it is to create labels that suddenly seem unchangeable.
Five months before the election, the image that has emerged is of a man who is confused, who walks around like a pensioner who has lost his way on the way back to a retirement home. He is simply no longer able to do so, but who cannot be removed from office by his party either, because there is no one ready to even begin to replace him.
In Apulia, Biden once again had one of those moments that made you wonder how this man is going to hold out until November. It goes like this: On the sidelines of the summit, Biden and other heads of government watched a skydiving show. Emmanuel Macron was there, as was Scholz, and Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission. When the skydiver landed right in front of them, Biden suddenly turned away – and seemed to run into nowhere. Giorgia Meloni, the Italian host, carefully led him back.
Biden, as you can see in the full video, turns to other parachutists; the scene itself is not worth mentioning. But the edited images of the man in the void are already out there and the accusations that go with them: Yes, where is he going? Every step Biden takes is political. This is now a growing problem, also for the people gathered in Apulia, because they still need him.
Biden may seem to be wandering around without any direction, but politically he is the very guarantor that the West will not fall apart. He supports Ukraine like no one else. He is holding NATO together. He is proposing a ceasefire for Gaza. His people are drawing up a plan to use frozen Russian assets to mobilize $50 billion for Kiev. How could all of this work without him?
And then Joe Biden sings a serenade for Scholz
And so there is a slight tragedy, a touch of melancholy, about this summit. Some people here share the fate of being publicly badly hit and facing an uncertain future with Biden. The German Chancellor, for example, or the French President. And the Briton Rishi Sunak, of course. The same line-up will probably meet again by phone or video. One last dance in Apulia. As if it were a matter of finding the right format for the narrative that the West is a slightly out-of-fashion brand.
By the way: There was another scene with Joe Biden at this summit. It has to do with the Chancellor. When he showed up at the resort on Friday morning, Biden started singing Olaf Scholz’s birthday song. That’s what they do “in the Biden family,” the President said. Everyone laughed, sang, and congratulated a slightly embarrassed-looking Chancellor on his 66th birthday. A brief moment of lightness. Then the discussions continued.