Rishi Sunak is reunited with his biggest fan as PM gets a VERY warm greeting from Italy's Giorgia Meloni and the pair's friendship continues to flourish at G7 summit

Rishi Sunak today reunited with his Italian counterpart and biggest fan Giorgia Meloni as the pair joined other world leaders at the G7 summit.

Pictures showed the pair beaming as they warmly greeting each other at the summit in Puglia under the canopy of an olive tree.

Sunak clasped Meloni's hands and they appeared to share a joke together as they stood in a group that also included US president Joe Biden and French president Emmanuel Macron ahead of the sit-down talks.

Meloni, dressed in a baby pink suit, appeared less enthusiastic when welcoming Biden and Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, formally shaking their hands while posing for photographs.

Things appeared chilly between Meloni and Macron, too. The pair were courteous, but soon turned away from each other after their initial greeting, with Meloni appearing stony-faced as Macron went to take his place with the other leaders.

The G7 summit comes after Macron this week called snap elections at home after his party was trounced in European parliament elections by France's right wing nationalist party, which Meloni's party has far more in common with.

By contrast, Sunak and Meloni's friendship has flourished since they took office in 2022 within days of one another, with the British Prime Minister's spokesperson saying in December they 'obviously get on'.

This was put down to them having been elected 'at a similar time,' Politico reported, with Meloni taking office on October 22, 2022 - and Sunak three days later.

But the ties between the two leaders runs deeper than friendship. They have bonded over shared policy goals, too, such as taking a hard-line approach on immigration.

There are also political and diplomatic reasons for them to stay close, with Sunak needing an ally among the larger EU member states, one EU diplomat told Politico last year. 'He tried with France, but the bromance with Macron didn't really work.'

They told the publication that Sunak does not appear to have hit it off too well with Germany's centre-left Olaf Scholz, either, who is cut from a different political cloth.

Similarly, Sunak is not close with Spain's Pedro Sánchez who has caused headaches in 10 Downing Street with the dispute other Gibraltar.

As for Meloni, she has been more than happy to forge close ties with Sunak - providing him with a key ally on the European council.

The diplomat told Politico: 'Meloni needs to showcase that she is accepted by the big guns around the world' on account of her hard right political background not being shared by other key EU leaders, like Macron, Scholz and Sánchez.

Meloni found her political roots in Italy's neo-fascist youth movements. She also once praised dictator Benito Mussolini as a 'good politician' - but did also admit that he made 'mistakes' including the imposition of race laws.

Her friendship with Sunak helps with her gaining more legitimacy, experts have said.

Riccardo Magi, the president of the leftwing party Più Europa, told The Guardian in December that Sunak is a more palatable leader to cosy up to than Meloni's other friends, such as Hungary's nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

'Having the prime minister of an important country on your side is something that helps her, even if it is no longer a member of the EU,' Magi told the newspaper.

'There is a chemistry between them and they are obviously trying to consolidate their rapport, especially for external communication reasons. But this is something all rightwing parties do.'

Both Sunak and Meloni are also known to share similar objectives.

The Italian leader, who founded the Brothers of Italy party in 2012, has laid out a nationalist agenda and focused on the issue of immigration.

In the past, she has called her country 'Europe's refugee camp' and has laid out plans to send asylum seekers to Albania in a deal with the country.

But in October, Italian judges blocked her government from deporting people to unsafe countries - much like what happened with Sunak's own battle with judges in the UK over sending migrants to Rwanda.

Sunak and Meloni have publicly backed eachother by each showing up for events the other has organised.

When the British PM hosted an artificial intelligence summit in November, Meloni was the only other G7 leader who accepted his invitation.

Sunak returned the favour by attending a right wing political festival organised by the Brothers of Italy party in Rome in December.

A relationship has also been developing between Sunak's Conservative party and Meloni's Brothers of Italy party.

'There's obviously a big Italian diaspora here and what they seem to be doing is attempting build something like Republicans Abroad,' Paul Scully, a Conservative MP who hosted them, said at the time.

'They've come to the UK first, which may well be off the back of that warm relationship between the two leaders.'

The flourishing relationship between Sunak and Meloni may not last much longer while they are both leaders of their respective countries, however. 

Facing an election in early July at home, polls suggest Sunak and the Conservative party is facing an electoral wipe-out on July 4.

Sunak acknowledged that people were 'frustrated' with him and admitted the Tories 'have not got everything right' at his party's manifesto launch. But the Prime Minister has insisted he had 'absolutely not' lost hope of winning the election. 

The G7 summit opened today with an agreement on a US proposal to back a £39 billion loan to Ukraine using frozen Russian assets as collateral, giving Kyiv a strong show of support even as Europe's political chessboard shifts to the right.

Diplomats confirmed an agreement had been reached on the deal before the leaders even landed for the three-day gathering.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to sign a separate bilateral security agreement with US President Joe Biden.

Beyond the the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis will become the first pontiff to address a G7 summit, adding a dash of celebrity and moral authority to the annual gathering that is being held this year in Borgo Egnazia in southern Italy's Puglia region.

He will be speaking on Friday about the promises and perils of artificial intelligence, but is expected to also renew his appeal for a peaceful end to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The G7 comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.