The Group of Seven (G7), now the G8, is a club of advanced industrialized states that meets annually to discuss important economic, financial, and political issues. The first summit, held in Rambouillet in 1975, was attended by the G5 (France, Germany, Japan, the US, and the UK) and Italy. Canada and the European Community joined 1976 and 1977 respectively. Membership then stayed constant until the end of the Cold War. From 1991 onwards, Russian Presidents attended select G7 meetings. Full Russian participation at the 1998 Birmingham Summit marked the birth of the G8.
G7 ‘summit diplomacy’ has a number of functions. It provides a forum for world leaders to collaborate on collective problems, to manage the world economy, and to address issues arising from interdependence and globalization. It presents an opportunity for leaders to forge good personal relations. G7 summits are also used to set international priorities, to identify and define issues, to set up new regimes and reinvigorate existing ones, and to provide guidance to international organizations. The G7 works closely with other organizations, in particular the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Unlike the United Nations or the Bretton Woods institutions, the G7 has no charter, formal rules, or permanent secretariat. The G7's unusual format dates back to 1975: the Rambouillet meeting was intended to be a ‘one-time get-together’ to discuss economic and monetary issues in the wake of the OPEC oil crisis and the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system. This one-off meeting became an annual summit. Senior national officials—or ‘sherpas’—prepare the summit agenda in advance, although leaders are under no obligation not to deviate from it. The G7 reaches ‘understandings’ rather than resolutions, and relies on consensus formation rather than formal voting. Compliance with G7 understandings varies according to country and issue-area. Whereas at the outset it was little more than an informal club, the G7 may now be described as a system consisting of complex, multi-levelled bodies. Since the 1980s, G7 working groups and task forces have addressed specific problems, such as nuclear safety and organized crime. Key issues have been shifted to a ministerial level: the ‘Quadrilateral’ of trade ministers from the US, Japan, Canada, and the EC has met annually since 1982, and foreign affairs ministers since 1984. Ad hoc meetings are occasionally convened in response to particular events, such as the Gulf War and the 1992 Rio Conference.
The G7's agenda has also evolved over the years, reflecting both changes in leadership and broader political and economic developments. Traditionally, G7 summits have discussed macroeconomic issues such as international economic and financial management, trade, and relations with developing countries. Key achievements include the 1985 Plaza Agreement, which corrected G7 currency misalignments and coordinated interest rates, and the 1987 Louvre Accord, which stabilized the American dollar after it fell too rapidly. Following the accession of a new generation of politically conservative, pro-market leaders in the early 1980s, the G7 began to explicitly address political issues, with summit discussion of world events such as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon (1982), the deployment of US missiles in Europe (1983), and the situation in the Middle East, Cambodia, and South Africa (1988). Summits have also increasingly tackled ‘microeconomic’ issues such as employment and information technology.
In the 1990s, two issue-areas dominated the G7 discussions: issues arising from the end of the Cold War and the transnational challenges posed by economic globalization. After the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the G7 explored means of assisting the transition to market democracy in post-communist states. At the 1989 Summit, the G7 established the Group of Twenty-Four (G24)—composed of the OECD and former Warsaw Pact states—in order to aid the process of transition. The G7 also set up the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to finance transition. Second, G7 summits increasingly sought to find solutions to transnational problems. Issues addressed at recent summits include: the developing world debt crisis; the environment; global energy issues; trade; UN reform; the Asian financial crisis; global poverty; nuclear safety; non-proliferation; world health; the ‘digital divide’; and conflict prevention.
The G7 is not immune from criticism, both from other states and from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). While its informal structure allows for a high degree of flexibility, the gap between the G7's global role and its lack of accountability has provoked criticism from NGOs and the media, most notably at the 2001 Genoa Summit. Analysts also question the extent to which the G7 states are representative of the global economy. This issue was partially addressed at the 1999 Cologne Summit, when eleven states—including Brazil, Australia, Argentina, and South Africa—joined the G8 to form the Group of Twenty (G20). The G20 aims to promote dialogue between systemically important economies, but has no decision-making powers.
— Vivien Collingwood
