The G7 Speakers’ meeting, which took place at Palazzo del Podestà in Verona, closed business with the adoption of Final Conclusions and the official handing over of the presidency from Italy to Canada. “The pressing challenges we face mean our parliaments need to focus not only on current affairs but also on the question of the ‘future dimension’, which needs to be added in our agenda” declared President Fontana. “Each parliament should be disposed towards bringing the future into the present as a way of improving its decision-making process over a time horizon that is not limited to the term of a single parliament,” he remarked before passing the baton to his Canadian counterpart Greg Fergus, who will chair the meeting of the presidents and speakers of the lower houses of G7 countries in 2025.

In his final speech, Fontana also called his colleagues’ attention to an invitation from the chair of the Italian Joint Committee for the Security of the Republic, Lorenzo Guerini, to all his G7 counterparts to a meeting of the parliamentary committees of intelligence oversight and scrutiny scheduled for November in Rome, and expressed his hope that this initiative of the Italian Parliament would be widely attended.