page_title: 35th G8 summit
section_title: Issues
hierarchical_section_title: 35th G8 summit / Issues
caption_attribution_description: English: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, (Russian representative not pictured) confer together while attending the G-8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, July 8, 2009. Français&#160;: Le Premier ministre canadien Stephen Harper, la chancellière allemande Angela Merkel, le président américain Barack Obama, le premier ministre britannique Gordon Brown, le premier ministre japonaise Taro Aso, le premier ministre italien Silvio Berlusconi et le président français Nicolas Sarkozy, discutent avant d'assister au sommet du G8 à L'Aquila en Italie, 8 juillet 2009.
context_page_description: The 35th G8 summit was held in L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy, on July 8–10, 2009. It was moved from the Sardinian seaside city of La Maddalena as part of an attempt to redistribute disaster funds after the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake.
  The locations of previous summits to have been hosted by Italy include: Venice; Venice; Naples and Genoa. The G8 Summit has evolved beyond being a gathering of world political leaders. The event has become an occasion for a wide variety of non-governmental organizations, activists and civic groups to congregate and discuss a multitude of issues.
  The Iranian government made a formal complaint to the Italian government about "violent suppression of justice-seeking protesters by the Italian police."
context_section_description: The summit was intended as a venue for resolving differences among its members. As a practical matter, the summit was also conceived as an opportunity for its members to give each other mutual encouragement in the face of difficult economic decisions.  From Italy's perspective, the important thing is for the evolving G8 to avoid being too closely linked to serial emergency situations when there is no room for discussing broader issues.
  The Rambouillet summit in 1975 produced no easy answers to what was then the most serious recession since the  Great Depression of the 1930s; but the main themes of what is now considered the 1st G8 summit have persisted at the top of the world's agenda—avoiding protectionism, energy independence, and boosting growth.  However, the plausibly prescient British Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Peter Mandelson, speaking in 2009, expressed the opinion that "however long it might persist as a grouping, as a steering committee for the global economy, the era of the G8 is over". Mandelson's comment comes during a trip to Sao Paulo, Brazil.
caption: G8 leaders confer together.
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