The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) major advanced economies, namely Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, start a three-day annual summit on Saturday in Biarritz, France
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th August, 2019) The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) major advanced economies, namely Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, start a three-day annual summit on Saturday in Biarritz, France.
The decision to hold meetings between the leaders of industrialized countries was made in the early 1970s due to financial instability and the first oil crisis caused by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) imposing an embargo on oil supplies to Western countries that supported Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
French, German, US and UK finance ministers, realizing the need to regulate economic and fiscal policies, gathered on March 25, 1973, in the White House library, thereby forming the so-called "Library Group." In September of that year, Japan joined the four countries. The finance ministers of the five countries occasionally met until the mid-1980s.
The first meeting between the leaders of six industrialized countries � France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States � was held from November 15-17, 1975, in the French commune of Rambouillet, at the initiative of then-French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing.
The final declaration of the Rambouillet summit presented the agreed assessments of the world's major trade, monetary, financial and economic issues, as well as prioritized the supply of sufficient energy resources to Western economies.
The participants coordinated key ways to resolve the energy crisis, including the reduction of energy imports and conservation, the rational use of natural resources and the development of alternative energy sources. The countries' leaders also agreed to ensure more balanced conditions on the world energy market through cooperation with energy producers.
In 1976, Canada joined the group. Representatives of the European Union have attended G7 summits since 1977.
Originally, the Group of Seven dealt only with monetary policy issues. At the turn of the 1980s, they focused on broader issues. Its leaders discussed politics and military, social, environmental and economic issues.
Russia first joined the group in 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was invited to a G7 meeting. He did not directly participate in the summit, but met with the seven leaders both in person and on a group basis and discussed plans for Soviet economic and political reform in detail.
In 1992, Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, took part in the meeting of the group in Munich.
During the 1994 summit in the Italian city of Naples, Russia took part in political discussions as a full-fledged partner for the first time. At the 1997 summit in the US city of Denver, Russia joined the G7 with restrictions on taking part in discussing some financial and other economic issues.
The Group of Seven officially became the Group of Eight (G8) in 1998 at a summit in the UK city of Birmingham.
The Group's summits are held alternately in partner countries on an annual basis. The country that hosts the top-level summit also holds the presidency during that year and determines the agenda. Regardless of the unofficial status of the decisions that are made during the summit, its participants issue a joint declaration after each event.
Russia hosted the G8 summit for the first time in 2006 in Strelna, a suburb of St. Petersburg. Energy security, healthcare, and education were the three main issues on the agenda. The participants also discussed the unauthorized use of intellectual property, the fight against corruption, trade, terrorism, post-conflict rehabilitation, the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the middle East and Africa.
The 2014 G8 summit was supposed to take place in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi in June, but in March, the White House press service issued a statement on the termination of preparations for the meeting by the G7 countries because of Russia's stance on Crimea and Ukraine.
In June 2014, the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, along with the president of the European Council and the president of the European Commission, met in Brussels in the G7 format, focusing on the situation in Ukraine.
In 2015, the G7 summit was held in Germany. In the final declaration, the countries agreed to allocate $100 billion a year toward climate protection up to 2020 and to join efforts in fighting against terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State (IS, banned in Russia) among other points.
Japan hosted the annual summit in 2016. The joint declaration adopted in the follow up to the summit outlined a coordination of efforts to ensure global economic growth, fight against terrorism and combat corruption. The leaders also exchanged views on a range of international issues, such as the situation in Syria, North Korea and relations between Russia and Ukraine.
The following year's G7 summit was held from May 26-27 in Italy's Taormina. The countries' leaders discussed issues related to climate change, the fight against terrorism, the resolution of the migration crisis, Russia, Syria and assistance to African countries in their struggle against epidemics and hunger.
In 2018, the G7 summit was held from June 8-9 in the Canadian province of Quebec. According to the final communique, the parties agreed on "free, fair, and mutually beneficial trade and declared the importance of fighting protectionism." The leaders urged Iran to refrain from launching missiles and other "destabilizing" actions and accused the Syrian authorities of using chemical weapons along with the IS.
The heads of the seven states also agreed on the future of relations with Moscow and called on Russia "to cease its destabilizing behavior, to undermine democratic systems and its support of the Syrian regime."
US President Donald Trump left the meeting of the group ahead of schedule and did not sign the final communique.
During the summit, Trump also called for Russia to be readmitted to the group. Most of the summit participants met the statement of the US leader with harsh criticism. Only Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte noted that he hoped that the G8 format, which would include Russia in the group, would be restored.
The issue of Moscow's participation in the G8 was raised again before the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, on June 19, 2019, but the Russian leader said that the G8 no longer existed.
After negotiations in France on the return of Russia to the G8, Trump stated that he would support such an initiative, and explained that Moscow's participation in such negotiations would be "appropriate."
Commenting on the US and Italian leaders' remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there was a need to find out the stance of other members of the group on the issue. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow would consider the G7 request if there were any.
Moscow repeatedly said that it did not intend to take any steps to get back to the G8 group, since the G8 and G7 formats largely exhausted their international authority, while the G20 format was more preferable to discuss the most pressing issues.
