The G-8 Summit Council on Foreign Relations Leave a comment

The forum enables presidents and prime ministers, as well as their finance and foreign ministers, to candidly discuss pressing international issues. The decision to hold the July Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg was meant to symbolize Russia’s full integration into the club of the world’s richest industrialized democracies. Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to shift the focus away from his domestic policies and toward issues such as energy security, infectious diseases, and global education. If the recent pre-meeting of the G8 foreign ministers is any indication, a number of external conflicts will also be on the agenda, including the Iran nuclear case, North Korea’s missile tests, and the escalating conflict in the Middle East. The meetings, the sites of which are rotated among member states, permit valuable personal relationships to develop.

Why’s it called G8 and who’s in it?

1. Moscow faced renewed criticism in March 2014 on the heels of its invasion of neighboring Ukraine’s Crimea region, the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and many ethnic Russians, amid political transition in the capital of Kiev.
2. Treasury Secretary George Shultz, who invited finance ministers from Germany, the UK, and France to meet at the White House, with the looming Middle East oil crisis a topic of serious concern.
3. Though the G8 was set up as a forum for economic and trade matters, politics crept onto the agenda in the late 1970s.
4. The Y8 Summit brings together young leaders from G8 nations and the European Union to facilitate discussions of international affairs, promote cross-cultural understanding, and build global friendships.
5. For the United States, this means following a “horses for courses” approach–selecting the multilateral forum most appropriate to the task(s) at hand, tailored to U.S. objectives, sensitive to U.S. freedom of action, and likely to be effective.

But the G8 retains distinct advantages in discussing matters of “high politics,” including human rights, peace, and security. Russia has moved in a far more illiberal direction, “something the West should be concerned about,” Legvold says. “But whether it should move to the top of the agenda is another matter.” He says it is “not just ineffective but counterproductive” if only a few U.S. senators, such as Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) or John McCain (R-AZ), harp 5 best crypto wallets of 2021 against Russia’s rollback of democracy. “Western leaders must disabuse themselves of the notion that by preaching values one can actually plant them,” writes Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs.

Government activity

France and Britain, meanwhile, pressed the United States to deploy major air assets like A-10 Warthogs and C-130 gunships to sustain intensified military operations, in the face of wavering political support of European publics for a prolonged campaign. The subject was revisited at the 2007 Heiligendamm summit, where an agreement among leaders on the need to tackle climate change was hailed as an important step forward. Within the last decade or so, the G8 has launched drives to counter disease, including HIV/Aids, and has announced development programmes and debt-relief schemes. Aid is often conditional on the respect for democracy and good governance in the recipient countries.

China, with the second-strongest economy after the US, has never been a G7 or G8 member. Since 2000, the annual summits have attracted numerous demonstrations and intense media scrutiny. The G8 is a forum that provides the xabcd pattern indicator suite for ninjatrader 8 opportunity for its members to co-operate in addressing global challenges. The standards it sets, commitments it makes and steps it takes aim to drive prosperity and economic growth all over the world. Prime Minister David Cameron has said that this year the G8 will return to its roots, creating the right environment for frank and open discussions to promote growth and address global economic problems.

The G8 summit is an annual meeting between leaders from eight of the most powerful countries in the world. Member states’ failure to deliver on ambitious commitments has been the subject of much criticism, but in recent years, external actors bringing attention to the problem of noncompliance have made accountability a critical part of the G8 agenda. “The G8—the governments themselves—have become increasingly aware of the cynicism that attends to G8 commitments and whether they’re actually delivered upon,” Patrick says, citing the importance of pressure from civil society. Cameron has made accountability a key part of this year’s agenda, particularly with respect to development assistance, and his office issued a report card in advance of the summit evaluating member states’ performance on prior commitments on international development. An example of such a youth-led organization is the Young European Leadership association, which recruits and sends EU Delegates.

By design, the G8 deliberately lacked an administrative structure like those for international organizations, such as the United Nations or the World Bank. Blair and his chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, want the G-8 to agree on a plan to implement the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which include cutting global poverty in half, reducing child mortality by two-thirds, providing primary education for all children, and halting the spread of AIDS by 2015. Britain is urging G-8 countries to give 0.7 percent of their gross domestic products GDPs toward these goals, and Blair has embarked on a whirlwind round of shuttle diplomacy leading up to the conference to secure the agreement of G-8 finance leaders. However, Bush has resisted this plan, saying the United States already gives millions in aid around the world. Russia now joins a number of other global economic powerhouses that are not included in the G8.

What are the main issues topping this year’s agenda?

Africa is the only region of the world where average incomes are lower now than they were 30 years ago, according to U.N. Africa is home to 13 percent of the world’s population, and nearly one-third of the people worldwide who live in extreme poverty, or on less than one dollar a day. Thirteen million Africans have already died of AIDS, and another 26 million are infected with the virus, a figure that increases daily. The G8’s role as an anchor of Western order has only grown in importance as emerging countries form consulting is more than giving advice their own configurations, from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to India-Brazil-South Africa, to the BRICS.

Russia had neither a fully liberalized economy nor Western-style democracy, but G7 leaders hoped Russia’s inclusion would safeguard its democratic progress. Russia held the G8 presidency for the first time in 2006 and will once again assume the presidency in 2014, with the summit set to be held in Sochi, a Black Sea resort city that was host to the 2014 Winter Olympics. Following 1994’s G7 summit in Naples, Russian officials held separate meetings with leaders of the G7 after the group’s summits.