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### Viewing cable 09ROME755, SCENESETTER FOR THE PRESIDENT'S PARTICIPATION IN

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
09ROME755 | 2009-06-27 08:08 | 2011-02-19 11:11 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Rome

`

    VZCZCXRO0548
    OO RUEHAG RUEHROV RUEHSL RUEHSR
    DE RUEHRO #0755/01 1780822
    ZNY CCCCC ZZH
    O 270822Z JUN 09
    FM AMEMBASSY ROME
    TO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
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    RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING IMMEDIATE 1378
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    RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO IMMEDIATE 0444
    RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA IMMEDIATE 0927
    RUEHDK/AMEMBASSY DAKAR IMMEDIATE 0558
    RUEHMD/AMEMBASSY MADRID IMMEDIATE 1952
    RUEHME/AMEMBASSY MEXICO IMMEDIATE 0582
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    RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI IMMEDIATE 0863
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    RUEHRH/AMEMBASSY RIYADH IMMEDIATE 0512
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    RUEHTC/AMEMBASSY THE HAGUE IMMEDIATE 1416
    RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO IMMEDIATE 2036
    RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI IMMEDIATE
    RUEHROV/AMEMBASSY VATICAN IMMEDIATE 0891
    RUEHMIL/AMCONSUL MILAN IMMEDIATE 0108
    RUEHNP/AMCONSUL NAPLES IMMEDIATE 3880
    RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2302

` `

    C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ROME 000755

    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/25/2019
    TAGS: PGOV PREL IT
    SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR THE PRESIDENT'S PARTICIPATION IN
    THE G8 L'AQUILA SUMMIT, JULY 8-10

    ROME 00000755  001.2 OF 003

    Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Elizabeth Dibble for Reason 1.4 (b)
    and (d)

    Mr. President, welcome to L'Aquila.

    ¶1.  (C) BEGIN SUMMARY: This G8 Summit in L'Aquila is the
    culmination of a busy year for the Italian G8 Presidency.
    Prime Minister Berlusconi is very pleased to host this event,
    to host you, and to demonstrate his role as elder statesman
    of the G8 ""club.""  In Italy, all eyes will be on Berlusconi
    and how he handles this summit, which comes while the Italian
    and foreign press are full of lurid allegations involving his
    personal life. With members of Berlusconi's party fearing
    that new allegations will come out before or during the
    summit, the Prime Minister is hoping to use the event to
    demonstrate that he is respected internationally.

    ¶2.  (C) Italy has fielded an overly-ambitious G8 agenda in
    2009, addressing global financial stability (while
    acknowledging G20 primacy in this area), sustainable
    development (particularly with regard to Africa), climate,
    energy security, Afghanistan/Pakistan, non-proliferation,
    piracy, food security and global trade.  Forging a consensus
    on these issues has been a painstaking process but Italy has
    done its best to channel its unwieldy ambitions into an
    outcome that is acceptable to its G8 partners and which lays
    the groundwork for effective future action. That said, a
    proliferation of issues and an ever-expanding roster of
    invitees has characterized the Italian effort, detracting
    from the cohesiveness of the event, and perhaps from the
    Italians' ultimate goal of ensuring that the G8 remain
    relevant.   END SUMMARY.

    ¶3. (C)  Mr. President, welcome to the G8 Summit in L'Aquila.
    PM Berlusconi has been looking forward for months to playing
    host to his third G8 Summit.  He is also looking forward to
    seeing you again after your very positive June 15 meeting in
    Washington.  The Summit was originally scheduled to take
    place on the island of La Maddalena, off the coast of
    Sardinia, and construction on the Summit venue was well
    underway when in April 2009 Berlusconi announced that the
    Summit would be moved to L'Aquila, site of the April 6, 2009
    earthquake that killed 298 and left 65,000 displaced.
    Berlusconi's rationale was that the event would bring
    much-needed revenue to the stricken area and impart to the
    Summit a ""sober"" tone more in tune with the current austere
    economic times than the resort-studded coastline of Sardinia.
     L'Aquila, a beautiful medieval city nestled in the heart of
    the Appenine Mountains, is still recovering from the April 6
    quake.  Many residents are still living in tents and historic
    buildings in the downtown core are held together by steel
    bands as crews work around the clock to rebuild.

    -----------------------------------------
    President Berlusconi's Political Fortunes
    -----------------------------------------

    ¶4. (C)  PM Silvio Berlusconi is currently embroiled in
    scandals concerning his private life, including allegations
    of improper sexual relationships. In turn, Berlusconi has
    aggressively gone on the offensive, blaming this situation on
    a plot orchestrated by international and domestic enemies in
    an effort to smear his name prior to the G8 Summit.
    Historically, Berlusconi's many domestic opponents have
    chosen to launch their ""attacks"" during high-profile
    international conferences being held in Italy: in 1994, at
    the Naples UN ministerial on transnational crime, Berlusconi
    was charged with corrupting the Italian financial police; in
    2001, Milan judges charged him with tax fraud shortly before
    he hosted the G8 in Genoa (he was not convicted of either
    charge). Now press and political circles in Rome are buzzing
    with potential new dramatic revelations. Traditionally the
    Italian electorate has been disinterested in international
    attitudes towards Italy's leaders, and has been unmoved by
    peccadilloes in the personal lives of its politicians.
    However, the salaciousness of the charges against Berlusconi,
    and the growing impression that he is not taken seriously
    abroad has heightened the importance of this summit for the
    Prime Minister. He almost certainly sees it as an opportunity
    to recover his public persona abroad, while dramatically
    demonstrating his role as an international statesman at home.
    Given the intense importance that this G8 summit has now
    taken for domestic politics, any Berlusconi gaffes or
    perceived snubs by other world leaders will receive
    tremendous attention by the Italian media.

    -----------
    The Economy
    -----------

    ¶5. (C)  Berlusconi is vulnerable to being seen by the public
    as failing to step up to the real economic problems
    confronting Italy.  The global economic crisis may be getting
    ready to bite harder here - some observers are predicting a
    ""double dip"" recession.  Savings are already being run down,
    credit is both more expensive and increasingly harder to
    obtain and unemployment continues to tick upward.  Italy's
    economic growth rate -- which was relatively low even before
    the crisis -- has dropped precipitously owing to sharp
    contractions in its export markets and falling domestic
    demand.  Unemployment is expected to exceed eight percent
    this year and to rise further in 2010.  Government tax
    revenues are, not unexpectedly, off sharply.  Italy's already
    high level of government debt and the debt ceilings that come
    with euro membership significantly limit the government's
    ability to provide fiscal stimulus for the economy.

    ----------
    The Summit
    ----------

    ¶6.  (C) This G8 Summit is the culmination of a busy year for
    the Italian G8 Presidency. Italy will host a record nine G8
    Ministerial Meetings this year throughout Italy, and will
    have hosted over 80 G8 Sherpa, Sous-Sherpa, Political
    Director and Working Group meetings by the time the L'Aquila
    Summit begins.

    ¶7. (C)  While as of June 26, the final agenda was still being
    worked out, Italian G8 Sherpa, MFA Secretary General
    Giampiero Massolo, publicly touted the G8's main priorities
    this week as ""promoting the global agenda"" (defined as the
    ""global standard"" and a ""detax proposal"") and ""demonstrating
    that the G8 still makes sense.""  The reality is that efforts
    to refine the agenda and offer a clear focus are coming late:
    Italy's Presidency has been characterized by a proliferation
    of themes, the sheer number of which has diluted the clarity
    of any eventual G8 message.  This failure to focus their G8
    message may have been due in part to Italy's internal
    disorganization throughout the process, and desire to cover
    the waterfront on possible issues of global relevance.  While
    the Italians had earlier hopes of ""deliverables"" (e.g.,
    anti-piracy) that have run into immovable objections, it
    seems they do not at this point have substantial objectives
    on G8 issues, and have viewed their role as principally to
    shepherd discussions to agreement.

    ¶8. (C)  The proliferation of themes has been matched by an
    ever-expanding number of invitees.  In keeping with recent G8
    practice, in addition to the G8 and the EU, Italy is inviting
    to the Summit the ""Outreach 5"" countries of the ""Heiligendamm
    Process"" (China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa), the
    countries participating in the Major Economies Forum (MEF) on
    Energy and Climate (G8   Outreach 5   South Korea, Australia
    and Indonesia) and the African countries of the NEPAD group
    (New Partnership for African Development -- Libya, Egypt,
    Algeria, Senegal, Nigeria and Ethiopia).  In addition, Italy
    has invited Egypt to the Outreach 5 session, Denmark to the
    MEF Session (in its capacity as host of the December 2009 UN
    Climate Change Conference) as well as Spain and the
    Netherlands, making this the biggest G8 Summit ever and
    surpassing the G20 in size.

    ¶9.  (C) Many G8 partners have been critical of the size and
    scope of this G8, as well as of Italy's occasional preference
    for form over substance and its at times lackadaisical
    approach to crafting G8 statements.  Italy's ambitious agenda
    may have been driven in part by its fear that the G8 would
    become irrelevant on Italy's watch.  French President
    Sarkozy's public questioning of the G8's relevance and UK PM
    Gordon Brown's successful bid to make the G20 the premier
    leaders' forum for addressing the global economic crisis have
    contributed to this concern,
     and have spurred Italy to expand
    G8 ""outreach"" to make it more inclusive and thematically
    wide-ranging.  This tendency has its drawbacks and its
    benefits --  Italy has been very open to U.S. efforts to
    highlight the importance of the Major Economies Forum this
    year, for instance, even though to do so may steal the
    spotlight from the G8 sessions.

    -------
    Comment
    -------

    ¶10. (C)  This year's G8 Summit has evolved via something of a
    ""bottom up"" approach due to lack of focused leadership from
    the top. The chaotic development of various themes has
    resulted from the at-times competing interest of key
    political players and Ministers, each seeking to make a
    splash via an important, but often ill-prepared, initiative.
    As the event approaches, PM Berlusconi is fully engaged,
    viewing the summit as an opportunity to show himself a
    statesman and showcase Italy.  Italian officials from the
    outset and throughout planning for the event have been eager
    to accommodate and support USG priorities, wishing to be in
    lockstep with our policies wherever possible.  PM Berlusconi
    returned elated from his meeting with you in Washington, and
    there was a collective sigh of relief across the board that
    warm relations with the US were intact despite the change of
    administration.  Your visit has special meaning to the
    Italian government and public, and Italian officials will
    work with you and your staff to make this event a success.

    ¶11. MINIMIZE CONSIDERED

    DIBBLE
    "

`