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Group of Eight
Map of G8 countries ; : Prime Minister Stephen Harper; : President Nicolas Sarkozy ; : Chancellor Angela Merkel ''President of the G8 for 2007''; : President of the Council Romano Prodi ; : Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; : President Vladimir Putin; : Prime Minister Gordon Brown; : President George W. Bush

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, these countries represent about 65% of the world economy^[1] and the majority of global military power (7 of the top 8 positions for military expenditure^[2], and almost all active nuclear weapons^[3]). 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.

Contents

History

Structure and activities

Annual summit

Economic power

Criticism and demonstrations

See also

References

External links

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, 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 U.S. 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 has attended all meetings since it was first invited by the United Kingdom in 1977.^[4]
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).

Structure and activities

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, 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": China, Mexico, India, Brazil and South Africa. Additionally, representatives from the European Commission are present at all G8 meetings.
In June 2005, justice ministers and interior ministers from the G8 countries agreed to launch an international database on pedophiles.G8 to launch international pedophile database David Batty June 18, 2005 The Guardian The G8 officials also agreed to pool data on terrorism, subject to restrictions by privacy and security laws in individual countries.G8 to pool data on terrorism Martin Wainwright June 18, 2005 The Guardian

Annual summit

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

Economic power

The eight countries making up the G8 represent about 14% of the world population, but they account for nearly two thirds of the world's economic output measured by gross domestic product.
In 2005, the combined G8 military spending was US$707 billion. This was 71% of the world's total military expenditures. The US takes up the
overwhelmingly largest share with US$478 billion in spending (48% of world total), distantly followed by the UK and France (5%
each) and Japan (4%). Four of the G8 members— United Kingdom, United States of America, France and Russia — together account for 98% of the world's some
100,000 nuclear weapons.

Criticism and demonstrations

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 exclusion of the People's Republic of China, the fourth largest economy in the world [6], the G8 no longer represents the concentration of economic power it did when it was created. The lack of representation from the 'global south' leads many critics to label the G8 as an institution to continue western economic domination.
Of the anti-globalization movement protests, the largest 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. A previously unknown Islamist group claimed responsibility for the bombings.

See also

★ 33rd G8 summit (information on the most recent summit)

★ G7

★ G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue

★ Anti-globalization

★ G8 Research Group—University of Toronto, Canada

★ Developing 8 Countries (D8), a group of eight large developing Muslim nations

★ Forum for the Future G8 meeting on Middle East reform

★ G11, a group of eleven developing countries

★ G20 industrial nations

★ G20 developing nations

★ G33

★ J8

★ List of countries and federations by military expenditures

★ List of countries by GDP

★ Senior G8 leader

★ World Social Forum

★ N-11

References

1. United Nations Development Programme
2. List of countries and federations by military expenditures
3. List of states with nuclear weapons
4. EU and the G8

External links

:''For the official summit websites, see the applicable article, e.g. 33rd G8 summit.''

★ G8: The World Can't Wait!, "Oxfam International G8 Blog", oxfam.org

★ G8 research group, "G8 Research Group's Information Centre", utoronto.ca

★ "Special Report: G8", ''Guardian Unlimited''

★ "Profile: G8", ''BBC News''

★ "London rocked by terror attacks", "BBC News", July 7 2005.

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

★ "FlashRadio", —An activist daily radio podcast focusing on the anti-G8 movement in Rostock, 2007
;Official G8 sites of member states (not summit specific)

★ Canada

★ United Kingdom

★
★ History of the G8 —UK government site
;Anti G8 Media Activism

★ "FlashRadio", —An activist daily radio podcast focusing on the anti-G8 movement in Rostock, 2007