7th G7 summit

7th G7 summit
Château Montebello in the province of Quebec
Host country	Canada
Dates	July 20-21, 1981
Venue(s)	Château Montebello
Cities	Montebello, Quebec
Follows	6th G7 summit
Precedes	8th G7 summit

The 7th G7 Summit was called the Ottawa Summit, and was held in Montebello, Quebec, Canada and nearby Ottawa between July 20 and 21, 1981. The venue for the summit meetings was the Château Montebello.^[1]

The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada (since 1976)^[2] and the President of the European Commission (starting officially in 1981).^[3] The summits were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a mild rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was a part of the genesis of cooperation between France's President Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the first Group of Six (G6) summit in 1975.^[4]

Leaders at the Summit

Leaders at the Chateau Montebello in Montebello, Quebec, Canada. From left to right: Gaston Thorn, Zenko Suzuki, Helmut Schmidt, Ronald Reagan, Pierre Trudeau, Francois Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, Giovanni Spadolini.

The G7 is an unofficial annual forum for the leaders of Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.^[3]

Core G7 participants

These summit participants are the current "core members" of the international forum:^[5]

Core G7 members Host nation and leader are indicated in bold text.
Member		Represented by	Title
	Canada	Pierre Trudeau [1]	Prime Minister
	France	François Mitterrand [1]	President
	West Germany	Helmut Schmidt [1]	Chancellor
	Italy	Giovanni Spadolini [1]	Prime Minister
	Japan	Zenko Suzuki [1]	Prime Minister
	United Kingdom	Margaret Thatcher [1]	Prime Minister
	United States	Ronald Reagan [1]	President
	European Commission	Gaston Thorn [6]	President

Issues

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.^[4]

See also

• G8

Notes

References

• Bayne, Nicholas and Robert D. Putnam. (2000). Hanging in There: The G7 and G8 Summit in Maturity and Renewal. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing. 10-ISBN 0-7546-1185-X; 13-ISBN 978-0-7546-1185-1; OCLC 43186692
• Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations. London: Routledge. 10-ISBN 0-415-16486-9/13-ISBN 978-0-415-16486-3; 13-ISBN 978-0-203-45085-7;10-ISBN 0-203-45085-X; OCLC 39013643

External links

• No official website is created for any G7 summit prior to 1995 -- see the 21st G7 summit.
• University of Toronto: G8 Research Group, G8 Information Centre
  • G7 1981, delegations & documents