G8

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"Group of Eight" redirects here. For the Australian league of universities, see Group of Eight (Australian universities). For other uses, see G8 (disambiguation) and G7 (disambiguation)

Group of Eight
Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper France President Jacques Chirac Germany (holder of presidency) Chancellor Angela Merkel Italy Prime Minister Romano Prodi Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Russia President Vladimir Putin United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair United States President George W. Bush Also represented European Union E.C. President José Manuel Barroso

The Group of Eight (G8) is an international forum for the governments of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Together, the eight countries represent about 65 percent of the world economy.^[1] The group's activities include year-round conferences and policy research, culminating with an annual summit meeting attended by the heads of government of the member states. The European Commission is also represented at the meetings.

Each year, member states of the G8 take turns assuming the presidency of the group. The holder of the presidency sets the group's annual agenda and hosts the summit for that year. The presidency for 2007 belongs to Germany, which will host the 33rd G8 summit in Heiligendamm from June 6 to June 8.

1 History
2 Structure and activities
3 Annual summit
4 Economic power
5 Criticism and demonstrations
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] History

The concept of a forum for the world's major industrialised democracies emerged following the 1973 oil crisis and subsequent global recession. In 1974, the United States created the Library Group, an informal gathering of senior financial officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, West Germany and Japan in the White House Library in Washington, to discuss global economic issues.^[2]

In 1975, French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing invited the heads of government from West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States to a summit in Rambouillet. The six leaders agreed to an annual meeting organized under a rotating presidency, forming the Group of Six (G6). The following year, Canada joined the group at the behest of United States President Gerald Ford, and the group became known as the Group of Seven (G7). The European Union is represented by the President of the European Commission and the leader of the country that holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union and have attended all meetings since it was first invited by the United Kingdom in 1977.^[3]

G8 work session; July 20-22, 2001.

The Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and Russia became the successor state. Beginning with the 1994 Naples summit, Russian officials held a separate meeting with leaders of the G7 after the main summit. This group became known as the Political 8 (P8), or colloquially as the "G7 plus 1". At the initiative of United States President Bill Clinton, Russia formally joined the group in 1997, resulting in the Group of Eight (G8). This was partly a gesture of appreciation from Clinton to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who steadfastly pursued economic reforms in Russia and remained neutral to the eastward expansion of NATO. This decision is not without its detractors; on February 18, 2005, United States Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain called for Russia to be suspended from the G8 until democratic reforms and political freedoms in Russia are ensured by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia is not included in the group's economic meetings for financial officials, since its economy was comparatively small as measured by gross domestic product. The term G7 now refers specifically to the seven countries excluding Russia, in the context of meetings for finance ministers and governors of central banks from those countries.

[edit] Structure and activities

The 33rd G8 summit in 2007 is held by Germany (Angela Merkel, Chancellor)

The G8 is intended to be an informal forum, and it therefore lacks an administrative structure like those for international organizations, such as the United Nations or the World Bank. The group does not have a permanent secretariat, or offices for its members. The presidency of the group rotates annually among the member countries, with each new term beginning on January 1 of the year. The country holding the presidency is responsible for planning and hosting a series of ministerial-level meetings, leading up to a mid-year summit attended by the heads of government.

The ministerial meetings bring together ministers responsible for various portfolios to discuss issues of mutual or global concern. The range of topics include health, law enforcement, labour, economic and social development, energy, environment, foreign affairs, justice and interior, terrorism and trade. The best known of these meetings is the G7, which refers specifically to the annual meeting of financial ministers from the seven member countries excluding Russia. There are also a separate set of meetings known as the "G8+5", attended by finance and energy ministers from all eight member countries in addition to the People's Republic of China, Mexico, India, Brazil, and South Africa; created at Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005, primarily to reach a consensus statement on a post 2012 Climate Change settlement. As well, representatives from the European Commission are present at all G8 meetings.

The Berlin born polar bear Knut will be the official mascot for the G8 summit in Heiligendamm. He is the symbol figure for global climate change.

Under the auspices of G7, a special program for the implementation of the Information Society was established in 1994. The Global Information Society held meetings during February 25–26, 1995 in Brussels, and during May 13–15, 1996 in South Africa.

In June 2005, justice ministers and interior ministers from the G8 countries agreed to launch an international database on paedophiles.^[4] The G8 officials also agreed to pool data on terrorism, subject to restrictions by privacy and security laws in individual countries.^[5]

Also in June 2005, the national science academies of the G8 countries signed a statement on the global response to climate change, joined by Brazil, the People's Republic of China and India, three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, behind the United States which produces 25% of all emissions. The statement stressed that scientific understanding of climate change is sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action,^[6] and explicitly endorsed the consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

[edit] Annual summit

See also: G8 logos

The annual G8 leaders summit is attended by eight of the world's most powerful heads of government. As such, it is an international event that is keenly observed and reported by news media. The member country holding the G8 presidency is responsible for organizing and hosting the year's summit, usually held for three days in mid-year.

	Date	Host country	Host leader	Location held	Web site
1st	November 15–17 1975	France	Valéry Giscard d'Estaing	Rambouillet
2nd	June 27–28 1976	United States	Gerald R. Ford	San Juan, Puerto Rico
3rd	May 7–8 1977	United Kingdom	James Callaghan	London
4th	July 16–17 1978	West Germany	Helmut Schmidt	Bonn
5th	June 28–29 1979	Japan	Masayoshi Ohira	Tokyo
6th	June 22–23 1980	Italy	Francesco Cossiga	Venice
7th	July 20–21 1981	Canada	Pierre E. Trudeau	Montebello, Quebec
8th	June 4–6 1982	France	François Mitterrand	Versailles
9th	May 28–30 1983	United States	Ronald Reagan	Williamsburg, Virginia
10th	June 7–9 1984	United Kingdom	Margaret Thatcher	London
11th	May 2–4 1985	West Germany	Helmut Kohl	Bonn
12th	May 4–6 1986	Japan	Yasuhiro Nakasone	Tokyo
13th	June 8–10 1987	Italy	Amintore Fanfani	Venice
14th	June 19–21 1988	Canada	Brian Mulroney	Toronto
15th	July 14–16 1989	France	François Mitterrand	Grande Arche, Paris
16th	July 9–11 1990	United States	George H. W. Bush	Houston, Texas
17th	July 15–17 1991	United Kingdom	John Major	London
18th	July 6–8 1992	Germany	Helmut Kohl	Munich
19th	July 7–9 1993	Japan	Kiichi Miyazawa	Tokyo
20th	July 8–10 1994	Italy	Silvio Berlusconi	Naples
21st	June 15–17 1995	Canada	Jean Chrétien	Halifax, Nova Scotia
-	April 19–20 1996 (Special summit on nuclear security)	Russia	Boris Yeltsin	Moscow
22nd	June 27–29 1996	France	Jacques Chirac	Lyon
23rd	June 20–22 1997	United States	Bill Clinton	Denver, Colorado	[1]
24th	May 15–17 1998 (First summit as G8)	United Kingdom	Tony Blair	Birmingham	[2] (archive)
25th	June 18–20 1999	Germany	Gerhard Schröder	Cologne
26th	July 21–23 2000	Japan	Yoshiro Mori	Okinawa	[3]
27th	July 20–22 2001	Italy	Silvio Berlusconi	Genoa	[4]
28th	June 26–27 2002	Canada	Jean Chrétien	Kananaskis, Alberta	[5]
29th	June 2–3 2003	France	Jacques Chirac	Évian-les-Bains	[6]
30th	June 8–10 2004	United States	George W. Bush	Sea Island, Georgia	[7]
31st	July 6–8 2005	United Kingdom	Tony Blair	Gleneagles, Scotland	[8]
32nd	July 15–17 2006	Russia	Vladimir Putin	Strelna, St. Petersburg	[9]
33rd	June 6–8, 2007	Germany	Angela Merkel	Heiligendamm, Mecklenburg	[10]
34th	2008	Japan
35th	2009	Italy
36th	2010	Canada
37th	2011	France
38th	2012	United States
39th	2013	United Kingdom
40th	2014	Russia

[edit] Economic power

The eight countries making up the G8 represent about 14 percent of the world population, but they account for nearly two third of the world's economic output measured by gross domestic product.

2005 (Int. Monetary Fund)	Population		BNE
	Mil.	%	Bil. $	%
United States	300.0	4.6	12455.8	28.0
Japan	127.8	2.0	4567.4	10.3
Germany	82.6	1.3	2791.7	6.3
United Kingdom	60.6	0.9	2229.5	5.0
France	60.0	0.9	2126.7	4.8
Italy	57.6	0.9	1765.5	4.0
Canada	32.5	0.5	1132.4	2.5
Russia	142.8	2.3	723.0	1.6
G8	855.6	13.5	27832.4	62.6
World	6345.1	100.0	44454.6	100.0

Source: World Development Report 2006, World Bank

[edit] Criticism and demonstrations

Protestors try to stop members of the G8 from attending the summit during the 27th G8 summit in Genoa, Italy by burning vehicles on the main route to the summit

As the annual summits are extremely high profile, they are subject to extensive lobbying by advocacy groups, street demonstrations by activists and, on rare occasion, terrorist attacks.

The most well-known criticisms center on the assertion that members of G8 are responsible for global issues such as poverty in Africa and developing countries due to debt crisis and unfair trading policy, global warming due to carbon dioxide emission, the AIDS problem due to strict medicine patent policy and other problems that are related to globalization. G8 leaders are therefore pressured to take responsibility to combat problems they are accused of creating. For example, Live 8, a series of concerts in July 2005 to coincide with the 31st G8 summit, was intended to promote global awareness and to encourage G8 leaders to "Make Poverty History." Live 8 organizers have also proposed that G8 member nations adjust their national budgets to allow for 0.7% to go towards foreign aid as outlined in Agenda 21 of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit.

Another criticism revolves around the membership of the G8. With the People's Republic of China and India excluded, the G8 no longer represents the concentration of economic power it did when it was created. Also, recent nominal GDP figures published by the World Bank suggest that Spain has replaced Canada as the eighth largest economy in the world. The lack of representation from the 'global south' leads many critics to label the G8 as an institution to continue western economic domination.^{[citation needed]}

Of the anti-globalization movement protests, the largest and most radical was that of the 27th G8 summit in Genoa in 2001. Summits since have been hosted outside of major cities. The opening day of the 2005 summit meeting in Scotland was accompanied by a series of synchronized terrorist bombings in London, killing dozens and derailing the summit agenda. The bombings were claimed by a previously unknown Islamist group.