G8 Summit
For the Australian league of universities, see Group of Eight (Australian universities). The former term, G6, is now frequently applied to the six most populous countries within the European Union (see G6 (EU)).
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.
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.
Recently, France, Germany, and Italy are lobbying to include Egypt to the O5 and expand the G8 to G14.
History
The concept of a forum for the world's major industrialized 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, 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 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. 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 United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President Bill Clinton, Russia formally joined the group in 1997, resulting in the Group of Eight, or G8.
Structure and activities
Leaders of the G8 on 7 June 2007, in Heiligendamm, Germany
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 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. 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. 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.
The Annual Summit
At the 34th G8 Summit at Toyako, Hokkaido, formal photo during Tanabata matsuri event for world leaders -- Silvio Berlusconi (Italy), Dmitry Medvedev (Russia), Angela Merkel (Germany), Gordon Brown (UK), Yasuo Fukuda (Japan), George Bush (US), Stephen Harper (Canada), Nicolas Sarkozy (France), José Barroso (EU) -- July 7, 2008.
The annual G8 leaders summit is attended by eight of the world's most powerful heads of government. 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 organising 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 34 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 UK, the USA, Canada, France, and Germany have nominal per capita GDP over US$40,000 dollars. Five of the seven largest stock exchanges by market value are in G8 countries (US, Japan, UK, France, Canada).
The G8 countries represent 7 of the 9 largest economies by nominal GDP (Russia isn't one of the 9 largest economies by nominal GDP but has the 7th largest real GDP; Canada was 8th in 2006 but in 2007 it lost 8th place to Spain, as it did in 2003, prompting the previous government headed by José María Aznar to request Spain's entrance in the G8). In an article by the Guardian, it was mentioned that there was of talk of Italy being be removed and replaced with Spain; however this was seen as unlikely.
The 2nd and 3rd largest oil producers (USA and Russia) and the country with the 2nd largest reserves (Canada) are in the G8. Seven of the nine largest nuclear energy producers are in the G8 (USA, France, Japan, Russia, Germany, Canada, UK).