Not since the oil shocks that first brought the world’s superpowers together in 1974–back then they called themselves the “Library Group” because they met in the White House library–has the G8 had so much substantive business on a summit agenda. In recent years, world leaders have mostly just tried to to out-do one another with pledges of development assistance, leading to stories like this one from my colleague Massimo Calabresi, that questioned the usefulness of the annual summit. Even in 2009, less than six months after the U.S. was forced to bail out Wall Street and the economy lapsed into the worst recession since the Great Depression, the agenda focused on a $22 billion food aid pledge. But when G8 members meet this week at Camp David, they’ll be hard pressed to re-up that sum. Helping poor farmers in Africa is tough when every extra cent may be needed to bail out Europe.
It’s not that Europe isn’t rich enough to save itself, but with 27 different parliaments involved, the European Union’s reaction time in a crisis is excruciatingly slow. Thanks to politicians trying to save their own careers – leaders in France, Great Britain, Italy, Ireland, Denmark, Spain and Portugal have lost elections since Obama took office in 2009 – most of the solutions on the table are mid- to long-term fixes, not good news for politicians who are up for reelection in the short term. Obama’s re-election prospects are at risk as Greece struggles to form a government and Europe stands at the brink.
All of that explains why this year’s G8 summit, for once, is pretty important. It’s Obama’s chance to talk to European leaders about saving their continent. Good thing he moved the summit from Chicago to Camp David: He’ll have a captive audience, unless German Chancellor Angela Merkel makes a break for it through the Maryland wilderness. Here are five things to watch for at this weekend’s G8 summit:
Welcome to the Funhouse, Francois Hollande. The newly elected French President is probably rethinking just what, exactly, he won last week. The U.S. has been pushing Hollande to consider some short-term stimulus, a tough order for a guy who inherited a budget deficit already at 4.4% of GDP, well above the Eurozone guideline of 3%. Hollande ran on a pledge to return France’s deficit to 3% of GDP by next year. That doesn’t bode well for advocates of government spending, even though France’s economy grew 0% in the first quarter. On his first day in office, Hollande braved thunderstorms – his plane was, perhaps symbolically, struck by lightening, delaying the trip briefly – to travel to Germany to meet with Merkel and to push growth measures. He now goes to Camp David with the difficult task of building relationships with Obama and Merkel, who openly supported Hollande’s predecessor, Nicholas Sarkozy.
This year’s G8 summit promises to be the most interesting in a decade and the chemistry of the class only adds to the intrigue. From the new kid, Hollande, to the understudy, Medvedev, to those fighting for their political lives, Obama and Merkel, the politics at play are complex. But one thing’s for sure: They’ve never needed one another as much as they do now.
The Group of Eight (G8) is a forum for the governments of eight large economies. (It excludes some members of the actual eight largest, such as China and Brazil). The forum originated with a 1975 summit hosted by France that brought together representatives of six governments: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, thus leading to the name Group of Six or G6. The summit became known as the Group of Seven or G7 the following year with the addition ofCanada. In 1997, Russia was added to group which then became known as the G8. The European Union is represented within the G8 but cannot host or chair summits.
"G8" can refer to the member states in aggregate or to the annual summit meeting of the G8 heads of government. The former term, G6, is now frequently applied to the six most populous countries within the European Union. G8 ministers also meet throughout the year, such as the G7/8 finance ministers (who meet four times a year), G8 foreign ministers, or G8 environment ministers.
Collectively, the G8 nations comprise 51.0% of 2011 global nominal GDP and 42.5% of global GDP (PPP). Each calendar year, the responsibility of hosting the G8 rotates through the member states in the following order: France, United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada. The holder of the presidency sets the agenda, hosts the summit for that year, and determines which ministerial meetings will take place. Lately, both France and the United Kingdom have expressed a desire to expand the group to include five developing countries, referred to as the Outreach Five (O5) or the Plus Five: Brazil,People's Republic of China, India, Mexico, and South Africa. These countries have participated as guests in previous meetings, which are sometimes called G8+5.
With the G-20 major economies growing in stature since the 2008 Washington summit, world leaders from the group announced at their Pittsburgh summit on September 25, 2009, that the group will replace the G8 as the main economic council of wealthy nations.
In my mind, G8 summit is a seminar where the major big countries communicate and change opinions, trying to supply each other's needs without loss of itself. But without a finance institution's backup, the proposals need to be further discussed in other meetings.
I think these countries get together is more than save the country the economy, they are power capital countries in the world. maybe they are considering how to pursue more profit in the future,Such as how to differentiate afresh capital cake.
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