The Group of Eight (G8, and formerly the G6 or Group of Six) is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of six major economies: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1976, Canada joined the group (thus creating the G7). In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8. In addition, the European Union is represented within the G8, but cannot host or chair. "G8" can refer to the member states or to the annual summit meeting of the G8 heads of government. The former term, G6, is now frequently applied to the six most populous countries within the European Union. G8 ministers also meet throughout the year, such as the G7/8 finance ministers (who meet four times a year), G8 foreign ministers, or G8 environment ministers.

Collectively, the G8 nations comprise 53.0% of global nominal GDP and 42.5% of global GDP (PPP). Each calendar year, the responsibility of hosting the G8 rotates through the member states in the following order: France, United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada. The holder of the presidency sets the agenda, hosts the summit for that year, and determines which ministerial meetings will take place. Lately, both France and the United Kingdom have expressed a desire to expand the group to include five developing countries, referred to as the Outreach Five (O5) or the Plus Five: Brazil, People's Republic of China, India, Mexico, and South Africa. These countries have participated as guests in previous meetings, which are sometimes called G8+5.

With the G-20 major economies growing in stature since the 2008 Washington summit, world leaders from the group announced at their Pittsburgh summit on September 25, 2009, that the group will replace the G8 as the main economic council of wealthy nations.

History

The concept of a forum for the world's major industrialized democracies emerged following the 1973 oil crisis. In 1974, a series of meetings in the library of the White House in Washington, D.C. was known as the "Library Group". This was an informal gathering of senior financial officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Japan and France. 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 Château de 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 Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and U.S. President Gerald Ford and the group became 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. The President of the European Commission has attended all meetings since it was first invited by the United Kingdom in 1977 and the Council President now also regularly attends.

Following 1994's G7 summit in Naples, Russian officials held separate meetings with leaders of the G7 after the group's summits. This informal arrangement was dubbed the Political 8 (P8) – or, colloquially, the G7+1. At the invitation of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair and President of the United States Bill Clinton, Russia formally joined the group in 1997, resulting in the Group of Eight, or G8.

Structure and activities

By design, the G8 deliberately 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 1 January 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 president of the European Commission participates as an equal in all summit events.

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, labor, economic and social development, energy, environment, foreign affairs, justice and interior, terrorism, and trade. There are also a separate set of meetings known as the G8+5, created during the 2005 Gleneagles, Scotland summit, that is attended by finance and energy ministers from all eight member countries in addition to the five "outreach countries" which are also known as the Group of Five — Brazil, People's Republic of China, India, Mexico, and South Africa.

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

Global energy

At the Heiligendamm Summit in 2007, the G8 acknowledged a proposal from the EU for a worldwide initiative on efficient energy use. They agreed to explore, along with the International Energy Agency, the most effective means to promote energy efficiency internationally. A year later, on 8 June 2008, the G8 along with China, India, South Korea and the European Community established the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation, at the Energy Ministerial meeting hosted by Japan holding 2008 G8 Presidency, in Aomori.

G8 Finance Ministers, whilst in preparation for the 34th Summit of the G8 Heads of State and Government in Toyako, Hokkaido, met on the 13 and 14 June 2008, in Osaka, Japan. They agreed to the “G8 Action Plan for Climate Change to Enhance the Engagement of Private and Public Financial Institutions.” In closing, Ministers supported the launch of new Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) by the World Bank, which will help existing efforts until a new framework under the UNFCCC is implemented after 2012.

Annual summit

The annual G8 leaders summit is attended by eight of the world's most powerful heads of government. However, as noted by commentators the G-8 summit is not the place to flesh out the details of any difficult or controversial policy issue in the context of a three-day event. Rather, the meeting is to bring a range of complex and sometimes inter-related issues. The G8 summit brings leaders together not so they can dream up quick fixes, but to talk and think about them together.

The G8 summit is an international event which is observed and reported by news media, but the G8's relevance is unclear. The member country holding the G8 presidency is responsible for organizing and hosting the year's summit, held for three days in mid-year; and for this reason, Tony Blair and the United Kingdom accumulated the lion's share of the credit for what went right (and wrong) at Gleneagles in 2005. Similarly, Yasuo Fukuda and Japan hope to garner the greater part of the credit for what went well (and what did not) at the Hokkaido Summit in 2008.

Each of the 36 G8 summit meetings could have been called a success if the events had been re-framed as venues to generate additional momentum for solving problems at the other multilateral conferences that meet throughout the year. The G8 annual summit sets the stage for what needs to be done and establishes an idea of how to do it, even if that idea is, at best, rough and patchy. The serial annual summits can be parsed chronologically in arguably distinct ways, including as the sequence of host countries for the summits has recurred over time, series, etc.

The summits have also been the site of numerous, large-scale anti-globalization protests.

June 27–28, 1976 May 7–8, 1977 July 16–17, 1978 June 28–29, 1979 June 22–23, 1980 July 20–21, 1981 June 4–6, 1982 May 28–30, 1983 June 7–9, 1984 May 2–4, 1985 May 4–6, 1986 June 8–10, 1987 June 19–21, 1988 July 14–16, 1989 July 9–11, 1990 July 15–17, 1991 July 6–8, 1992 July 7–9, 1993 July 8–10, 1994 June 15–17, 1995 June 27–29, 1996 June 20–22, 1997 May 15–17, 1998 June 18–20, 1999 July 21–23, 2000 July 20–22, 2001 June 26–27, 2002 June 2–3, 2003 June 8–10, 2004 July 6–8, 2005 July 15–17, 2006 June 6–8, 2007 July 7–9, 2008 Tōyako, Hokkaidō July 8–10, 2009 June 25–26, 2010 May 26–27, 2011 2012 2013 2014

!! Date !! Host country!! Host leader !! Location held !! Website !! Notes
1st G6 summit	1st	November 15–17, 1975	|	Valéry Giscard d'Estaing	Rambouillet (Château de Rambouillet>Castle of Rambouillet)		G6 Summit
2nd G7 summit	2nd	|		Gerald R. Ford	Dorado, Puerto Rico>Dorado, Puerto Rico		Also called "Rambouillet II;" Canada joins the group, forming the G7
3rd G7 summit	3rd	|		James Callaghan	London		President of the European Commission is invited European Union and the G8>to join the annual G-7 summits
4th G7 summit	4th	|		Helmut Schmidt	Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia
5th G7 summit	5th	|		Masayoshi Ōhira	Tokyo
6th G7 summit	6th	|		Francesco Cossiga	Venice
7th G7 summit	7th	|		Pierre E. Trudeau	Montebello, Quebec>Montebello, Quebec
8th G7 summit	8th	|		François Mitterrand	Versailles
9th G7 summit	9th	|		Ronald Reagan	Williamsburg, Virginia>Williamsburg, Virginia
10th G7 summit	10th	|		Margaret Thatcher	London
11th G7 summit	11th	|		Helmut Kohl	Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia
12th G7 summit	12th	|		Yasuhiro Nakasone	Tokyo
13th G7 summit	13th	|		Amintore Fanfani	Venice
14th G7 summit	14th	|		Brian Mulroney	Toronto
15th G7 summit	15th	|		François Mitterrand	Paris
16th G7 summit	16th	|		George H. W. Bush	Houston, Texas
17th G7 summit	17th	|		John Major	London
18th G7 summit	18th	|		Helmut Kohl	Munich, Bavaria
19th G7 summit	19th	|		Kiichi Miyazawa	Tokyo
20th G7 summit	20th	|		Silvio Berlusconi	Naples
21st G7 summit	21st	|		Jean Chrétien	Halifax Regional Municipality>Halifax, Nova Scotia
22nd G7 summit	22nd	|		Jacques Chirac	Lyon		International organization
[[23rd G8 summit	23rd	|		Bill Clinton	Denver, Colorado		Russia joins the group, forming G8
24th G8 summit	24th	|		Tony Blair	Birmingham, England
25th G8 summit	25th	|		Gerhard Schröder	Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia		First Summit of the G-20 major economies at Berlin
26th G8 summit	26th	|		Yoshiro Mori	Nago, Okinawa>Nago, Okinawa		Formation of the G8+5 starts, when South Africa was invited. Since then, it has been invited to the Summit annually without interruption. Also, with permission from a G8 leader, other nations were invited to the Summit on a periodical basis for the first time. Nigeria, Algeria and Senegal accepted their invitations here. The World Health Organization was also invited for the first time, too.
27th G8 summit	27th	|		Silvio Berlusconi	Genoa		Leaders from Bangladesh, Mali and El Salvador accepted their invitations here. Demonstrator Carlo Giuliani is shot and killed by police during a violent demonstration.
28th G8 summit	28th	|		Jean Chrétien	Kananaskis Improvement District>Kananaskis, Alberta		32nd G8 summit>G8 Summit.
29th G8 summit	29th	|		Jacques Chirac	Évian-les-Bains		unofficially made, when People's Republic of China>China, India, Brazil, and Mexico were invited to this Summit for the first time. South Africa has joined the G8 Summit since 2000. Other first-time nations that were invited by the French president included: Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Switzerland.
30th G8 summit	30th	|		George W. Bush	Sea Island, Georgia		Ghana, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Yemen and Uganda. Also, the Death and state funeral of Ronald Reagan>state funeral of former president Ronald Reagan took place in Washington during the summit.
31st G8 summit	31st	|		Tony Blair	Gleneagles, Scotland>Gleneagles, Scotland		The G8+5 was officially formed. On the second day of the meeting, suicide bombers killed 52 people on the London Underground and a bus. Nations that were invited for the first time were Ethiopia and Tanzania. The African Union and the International Energy Agency made their debut here.
32nd G8 summit	32nd	|		Vladimir Putin	Strelna, St. Petersburg		First G8 Summit on Russian soil. Also, the International Atomic Energy Agency and UNESCO made their debut here.
33rd G8 summit	33rd	|		Angela Merkel	Heiligendamm, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern		Seven different international organizations accepted their invitations to this Summit. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Commonwealth of Independent States made their debut here.
34th G8 summit	34th	|		Yasuo Fukuda	Toyako (Lake Toya), Hokkaido ||		Nations that accepted their G8 Summit invitations for the first time are: Australia, Indonesia and South Korea.
35th G8 summit	35th	|		Silvio Berlusconi	L'Aquila, Abruzzo		This G8 Summit was originally planned to be in La Maddalena (Sardinia), but was moved to L'Aquila as a way of showing Prime Minister Berlusconi's desire to help the region in and around L'Aquila after the earthquake that hit the area on the April 6th, 2009. Nations that accepted their invitations for the first time were: Angola, Denmark, Netherlands and Spain. A record of TEN (10) international organizations were represented in this G8 Summit. For the first time, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Food Programme, and the International Labour Organization accepted their invitations.
36th G8 summit	36th	|		Stephen Harper	Huntsville, Ontario		Malawi, Colombia, Haiti, and Jamaica accepted their invitations for the first time.
37th G8 summit	37th	|		Nicolas Sarkozy	Deauville, Lower Normandy>Basse-Normandie		Guinea, Niger, Côte d'Ivoire and Tunisia accepted their invitations for the first time. Also, the Arab League>League of Arab States made its debut to the meeting.
38th G8 summit	38th	|		Barack Obama	Chicago
39th G8 summit	39th	|		David Cameron	TBD		Britain hopes to refocus the event, possibly by discussing a single issue such as the Middle East and inviting key players, such as Turkey or Israel. David Cameron is critical of the value and cost of the G8 if there is too much focus on communiques as opposed to building trust between world leaders. He has been looking at the idea of attaching the G8 summit to another event such as the UN general assembly.
40th G8 summit	40th	|		TBD	TBD

Member facts

All eight of the G8 countries are amongst the thirteen top-ranked leading export countries. The USA, Germany, Italy, France, Russia and Japan are among the top 10 countries with the largest gold reserves. Some of the world's 18 largest major stock exchanges by traded value and market capitalization are in G8 countries (U.S., Japan, UK, Canada, Germany, Russia.) G8 countries are represented in the top eleven economies (by nominal GDP) of the world, according to latest (2010 data) International Monetary Fund's statistics. Also, five countries of the G8 have nominal GDP per capita above US$40,000. (USA, Canada, Japan, France, Germany), from the same 2010 IMF data.

A couple of the world's 10 largest oil producers (Russia, USA, and Canada) and the countries with the third and eighth largest oil reserves (Canada and Russia respectively) are in the G8. Seven of the nine largest nuclear energy producers are in the G8 (USA, France, Japan, Russia, Germany, Canada, UK), even though Germany will wean itself from nuclear power by 2022. The 7 largest donors to the UN budget for the 2011 annual fiscal year are in the G8 (U.S., Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Canada.) The G8 and the BRIC countries makes up almost all of the 15-nation "trillion dollar club of nations." All of the G8 and G8+5 countries (minus South Africa) are in the top twenty nations that are ranked by the amount of voting power and Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) in the IMF organization.

Cumulative influence of member nations

Together the eight countries making up the G8 represent about 14% of the world population, but they represent about 60% of the Gross World Product as measured by gross domestic product, all eight nations being within the top 12 countries according to the CIA World Factbook. (see the CIA World Factbook column in List of countries by GDP (nominal)), the majority of global military power (seven are in the top 8 nations for military expenditure), and almost all of the world's active nuclear weapons. In 2007, the combined G8 military spending was US$850 billion. This is 72% of the world's total military expenditures. (see List of countries and federations by military expenditures) Four of the G8 members, the United Kingdom, United States, France and Russia, together account for 96–99% of the world's nuclear weapons. (see List of states with nuclear weapons)

Criticism and demonstrations

The most widespread criticisms centre on the assertion that members of G8 are responsible for exacerbating global problems such as poverty in Africa and developing countries – through debt and trade policy; global warming – due to carbon dioxide emissions; and the AIDS problem – due to strict medicine patent policy and other issues related to globalization. During the 31st G8 summit in United Kingdom, 225,000 people took to the streets of Edinburgh as part of the Make Poverty History campaign calling for Trade Justice, Debt Relief and Better Aid. Numerous other demonstrations also took place challenging the legitimacy of the G8.

One of the largest and most violent anti-globalization movement protests occurred for the 27th G8 summit. Following those events and the September 11 attacks two months later in 2001, the G8 have met at more remote locations. The 7 July 2005 London bombings were timed to coincide with the 31st G8 summit in United Kingdom.

The group has also been criticized for its membership, which critics argue has now become unrepresentative of the world's most powerful economies. In particular, China has surpassed every economy except the United States, while Brazil has surpassed Canada and Italy (according to the IMF) and India has surpassed Russia.

See also

BRIC

Developing 8 Countries

Forum for the Future (Bahrain 2005)

G3 Free Trade Agreement

G7

G-20 major economies

Group of Two

Group of Eleven

Group of 15

Group of 24

Group of 77

Junior 8

List of countries by GDP (nominal)

List of countries by military expenditures

List of G8 summit resorts

List of longest serving G8 leaders

Next Eleven

World Social Forum

Notes

References

Bayne, Nicholas and Robert D. Putnam. (2000). Hanging in There: The G7 and G8 Summit in Maturity and Renewal. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing. 10-ISBN 0-754-61185-X; 13-ISBN 978-0-754-61185-1; OCLC 43186692

Haas, P.M. (1992). "Introduction. Epistemic communities and international policy coordination," ''International Organization 46,1:1–35.

Hajnal, Peter I. (1999). The G8 system and the G20 : Evolution, Role and Documentation. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing. 13-ISBN 9780754645504/10-ISBN 0754645509; OCLC 277231920

Kokotsis, Eleonore. (1999). Keeping International Commitments: Compliance, Credibility, and the G7, 1988–1995. New York: Garland Publishing. 10-ISBN 0815333323/13-ISBN 9780815333326; OCLC 40460131

Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations. London: Routledge. 10-ISBN 0415164869/13-ISBN 9780415164863; 13-ISBN 9780203450857;10-ISBN 020345085X; OCLC 39013643

External links

The Canadian Government's G8 Web Site (in English)

G8 Information Centre, G8 Research Group, University of Toronto

"2010 is a date with fate for G8", Oxfam International Blogs

"Special Report: G8", Guardian Unlimited

"Profile: G8", BBC News

"We are deeply concerned. Again", New Statesman, 4 July 2005, —G8 development concerns since 1977

G8 Information Centre Finance Ministers Meetings

"G8: Cooking the books won’t feed anyone", Oxfam International

"Dear G8 Leaders, don’t lie about your aid", Oxfam International Blogs

"Wait, the G-8 still exists?", Foreign Policy Magazine

"Is this the last G-8 summit meeting?", Foreign Policy Magazine

Category:Country classifications Category:International organizations Category:20th-century diplomatic conferences Category:21st-century diplomatic conferences

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