G8

|style="text-align:center;"|Group of Eight|
| --- | --- |
|***' ***' ***' ***' ***' ***' (suspended) ***' ***' ****||

The **Group of Eight** (**G8**) was a group made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia _(suspended)_, the United Kingdom and the United States. The European Commission is also represented in the committee. The group has conferences or meetings throughout the year, it researches policies, and has a summit meeting once a year. The heads of government of each G8 country attend the summit meeting.

Each year a different country takes over the presidency of the group for the duration of the year. The country that holds the presidency sets the agenda for the year and hosts the summit for that year. The first G6 meeting was in 1975. Canada joined in 1976, making G7. Russia made it G8 in 1997.

The organization's official 2014 summit was not held in Moscow as previously planned, due to the invasion and takeover of Crimea. On March 24, 2014, all seven member nations voted to suspend Russia from the G-8. The meeting was held in Brussels instead, and the G8 will be called G7 since there are now seven leaders.

## Overview

The G8 is not considered an international organization because it does not have administrative structure. This means that besides the president, there are no official titles for the members, they are all considered equal. Their meetings are not formal. The goal is to talk about global topics and problems in a relaxed manner.

There are many global problems and issues that can be discussed at meetings. Some common topics of discussion include: health, law enforcement, labor, economic and social development, energy, environment, foreign affairs, justice, terrorism, and trade.

### Yearly summit

The annual meeting of G8 leaders is attended by the heads of government and other invited guests. It is usually held for three days in the middle of the year. Each year one of the G8 countries is considered the G8 president. The country of the G8 presidency is responsible for organizing and hosting a summit during that year. The first summit meeting was held in November 1975 in France.

||Date|Host country|Host leader|Location held|Website|Notes|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|1st|November 15–17, 1975||Valéry Giscard d'Estaing|Rambouillet (Castle of Rambouillet)||G6 Summit|
|2nd|June 27–28, 1976||Gerald R. Ford|Dorado, Puerto Rico||Canada joins the group, forming the G7|
|3rd|May 7–8, 1977||James Callaghan|London||President of the European Commission is invited to join the annual G7 summits|
|4th|July 16–17, 1978||Helmut Schmidt|Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia|||
|5th|June 28–29, 1979||Masayoshi Ōhira|Tokyo|||
|6th|June 22–23, 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, North Rhine-Westphalia|||
|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|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, Bavaria|||
|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|||
|22nd|June 27–29, 1996||Jacques Chirac|Lyon||International organizations which are invited include: United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.|
|23rd|June 20–22, 1997||Bill Clinton|Denver, Colorado||Russia joins the group, forming G8|
|24th|May 15–17, 1998||Tony Blair|Birmingham, England|||
|25th|June 18–20, 1999||Gerhard Schröder|Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia|||
|26th|July 21–23, 2000||Yoshiro Mori|Nago, Okinawa|||
|27th|July 20–22, 2001||Silvio Berlusconi|Genoa|||
|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|||
|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|||
|34th|July 7–9, 2008||Yasuo Fukuda|Toyako (Lake Toya), Hokkaido|||
|35th|July 8–10, 2009||Silvio Berlusconi|L'Aquila, Abruzzo|||
|36th|June 25–26, 2010||Stephen Harper|Huntsville, Ontario|||
|37th|May 26–27, 2011||Nicolas Sarkozy|Deauville, Basse-Normandie|||
|38th|May 18–19, 2012||Barack Obama|Camp David|||
|39th|June 17-18, 2013||David Cameron|Enniskillen, Northern Ireland|||
|40th _(suspended)_|2014||Vladimir Putin|Moscow||Cancelled; Russia is suspended, restoring the organization to G7|
|41st|June 4-5, 2015||Angela Merkel|Schloss Elmau, Garmisch, Bavaria|||
|42nd|May 26-27, 2016||Shinzō Abe|Shima, Mie Prefecture|||
|43rd|May 26–27, 2017||Paolo Gentiloni|Taormina, Sicily|||
|44th|June 8-9, 2018||Justin Trudeau|Charlevoix, Quebec|||

### Economic power

The eight countries that make up the G8 represent about 14% of the people in the world but produce over 65% of the world's economic output measured by gross domestic product (GDP).

|2004|colspan=2|Population|colspan=2|GDP||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|align="left"|**World**|**6345.1**|**100.0**|**39833.6**|**100.0**|
|align="left"|United States|350.5|4.6|12179.9|30.7|
|align="left"|Japan|127.8|2.0|4749.9|11.9|
|align="left"|Germany|82.6|1.3|2749.0|6.3|
|align="left"|United Kingdom|59.4|0.9|2136.4|5.2|
|align="left"|France|60.0|0.9|1858.7|4.7|
|align="left"|Italy|57.6|0.9|1503.6|3.8|
|align="left"|Canada|31.9|0.5|905.6|2.3|
|align="left"|Russia|142.8|2.3|487.3|1.2|
|align="left"|**G8**|**855.6**|**13.5**|**26270.4**|**66.1**|
<small>Source: World Development Report 2006, World Bank</small>

## Other page

- World Economic Forum

## Other websites

- G8 research group, "G8 Research Group's Information Centre" , utoronto.ca
- "Special Report: G8", _Guardian Unlimited_
- "Profile: G8", _BBC News_
- "We are deeply concerned. Again", _New Statesman_, 4 July 2005, - G8 development concerns since 1977