7th G7 summit

7th G7 summit

Château Montebello in the province of Quebec
Host country Canada
Dates July 20–21, 1981
Venue(s) Château Montebello
Cities Montebello, Quebec
Follows 6th G7 summit
Precedes 8th G7 summit

The 7th G7 Summit was called the Ottawa Summit, and was held in Montebello, Quebec, Canada and nearby Ottawa between July 20 and 21, 1981. The venue for the summit meetings was the Château Montebello.[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]

Leaders at the Summit

Leaders at the Chateau Montebello in Montebello, Quebec, Canada. From left to right: Gaston Thorn, Zenko Suzuki, Helmut Schmidt, Ronald Reagan, Pierre Trudeau, François Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, Giovanni Spadolini.

The G7 is an unofficial annual forum for the leaders of Canada, the European Commission, France, 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 Canada Pierre Trudeau [1] Prime Minister
France France François Mitterrand [1] President
Germany West Germany Helmut Schmidt [1] Chancellor
Italy Italy Giovanni Spadolini [1] Prime Minister
Japan Japan Zenko Suzuki [1] Prime Minister
United Kingdom United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher [1] Prime Minister
United States United States Ronald Reagan [1] President
European Union European Commission Gaston Thorn [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]

Gallery

See also

Notes

References

External links