4th G7 summit

4th G7 summit

Schaumburg Palace in Bonn
Summit details
Host country
Dates July 16-17, 1978

The 4th G7 Summit was held at Bonn, West Germany between July 16 and 17, 1978. The venue for the summit meeting was at the former official residence of the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn, the Palais Schaumburg.[1]

The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada (since 1976)[2] and the President of the European Commission (starting officially in 1981).[3] The summits were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a mild rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was a part of the genesis of cooperation between France's President Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the first Group of Six (G6) summit in 1975.[4]

Contents

Leaders at the Summit

The G7 is an unofficial annual forum for the leaders of Canada, the European Commission, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.[3]

Core G7 participants

These summit participants are the current "core members" of the international forum:[5]

Core G7 members
Host nation and leader are indicated in bold text.
Member Represented by Title
Canada Pierre Trudeau [1] Prime Minister
France Valéry Giscard d'Estaing [1] President
West Germany Helmut Schmidt [1] Chancellor
Italy Giulio Andreotti [1] Prime Minister
Japan Takeo Fukuda [1] Prime Minister
United Kingdom James Callaghan [1] Prime Minister
United States Jimmy Carter [1] President
European Commission Roy Jenkins [6] President

Issues

The summit was intended as a venue for resolving differences among its members. As a practical matter, the summit was also conceived as an opportunity for its members to give each other mutual encouragement in the face of difficult economic decisions. [4]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA): Summit Meetings in the Past.
  2. ^ Saunders, Doug. "Weight of the world too heavy for G8 shoulders," Globe and Mail (Toronto). July 5, 2008 -- n.b., the G7 becomes the Group of Eight (G7) with the inclusion of Russia starting in 1997.
  3. ^ a b Reuters: "Factbox: The Group of Eight: what is it?", July 3, 2008.
  4. ^ a b Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations, p. 205.
  5. ^ Rieffel, Lex. "Regional Voices in Global Governance: Looking to 2010 (Part IV)," Brookings. March 27, 2009; "core" members (Muskoka 2010 G-8, official site).
  6. ^ MOFA: Summit (8); European Union: "EU and the G8"

References

External links

Preceded by
3rd G7 summit		 4th G7 summit
1978
West Germany		 Succeeded by
5th G7 summit