30th G8 summit

The 30th G8 summit was held in Sea Island, Georgia, United States, on June 8–10, 2004.

Overview

The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum that brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada starting in 1976. The G8, meeting for the first time in 1997, was formed with the addition of Russia. In addition, the president of the European Commission has been formally included in summits since 1981. 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 Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the initial summit of the Group of Six (G6) in 1975.

The G8 summits during the 21st-century have inspired widespread debates, protests and demonstrations; and the two- or three-day event becomes more than the sum of its parts, elevating the participants, the issues and the venue as focal points for anarchists, anticapitalists and domestic terrorists.

Leaders at the summit

The G8 is an unofficial annual forum for the leaders of Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

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The format order of this section mirrors the order of the Muskoka 2010 G8 official website -- see http://g8.gc.ca/about/member-states/

This format order is also congruent with "Summit Meetings of the Past" at website of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs -- see http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/summit/2000/past_summit/table_e/index.html

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{| class="wikitable"

|colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background:Gainsboro" |Core G8 members Host state and leader are shown in bold text.

|- style="background:LightSteelBlue; text-align:center;"

! colspan=2 | Member

! Represented by

! Title

| Canada

| Paul Martin

| Prime Minister

| France

| Jacques Chirac

| President

| Germany

| Gerhard Schröder

| Chancellor

| Italy

| Silvio Berlusconi

| Prime Minister

| Japan

| Junichiro Koizumi

| Prime Minister

| Russia

| Vladimir Putin

| President

| United Kingdom

| Tony Blair

| Prime Minister

| United States

| George W. Bush

| President

! rowspan="2" |

| rowspan="2" | European Union

| Romano Prodi

| Commission President

| Bertie Ahern

| Council President

|colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background:Gainsboro" |Guest invitees (Countries)

|- style="background:LightSteelBlue; text-align:center;"

! colspan=2 | Member

! Represented by

! Title

| Afghanistan

| Hamid Karzai

| President

| Algeria

| Abdelaziz Bouteflika

| President

| Bahrain

| Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa

| King

| Ghana

| John Kufuor

| President

| Iraq

| Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer

| President

| Jordan

| Abdullah II

| King

| Nigeria

| Olusegun Obasanjo

| President

| Senegal

| Abdoulaye Wade

| President

| South Africa

| Thabo Mbeki

| President

| Turkey

| Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

| Prime Minister

| Uganda

| Yoweri Museveni

| President

| Yemen

| Ali Abdullah Saleh

| President

|colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background:Gainsboro" |Guest invitees (International institutions)

|- style="background:LightSteelBlue; text-align:center;"

! colspan=2 | Member

! Represented by

! Title

| United Nations

| Kofi Annan

| Secretary-General

Priorities

Traditionally, the host country of the G8 summit sets the agenda for negotiations, which take place primarily amongst multi-national civil servants in the weeks before the summit itself, leading to a joint declaration which all countries can agree to sign.

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.

Those that did not extend their stay, like Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, French President Jacques Chirac, and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, also serving as President-in-Office of the European Council, paid tribute at the summit. The funeral took place the day after the summit ended. Martin cited the ongoing election campaign as the reason for not extending his stay in the US.

For Afghan Interim President Hamid Karzai, the summit was part of his week-long visit to the US. He scrapped a visit to the West Coast to visit the Afghan community and went to Washington instead, beginning his visit there by attending the funeral.

Business opportunity

For some, the G8 summit became a profit-generating event; as for example, the official G8 Summit magazines which have been published under the auspices of the host nations for distribution to all attendees since 1998.

The summit planning committee contracted with a Georgia-based wireless communication provider for 450 handsets and service to be used during the run up to the international event. In order to ensure reliable coverage in the coastal area around Sea Island, the company increased coverage and system capacity in advance of the summit. The handsets were deployed to coordinate operations, logistics, transportation, and other critical aspects of the preparations for the summit.

Gallery of participating leaders

Core G8 participants

File:Paul Martin in 2011 crop.jpg| CanadaPaul Martin, Prime Minister

File:Jacques Chirac (1997) (cropped).jpg| FranceJacques Chirac, President

File:Berlusconi-2010-1.jpg| ItalySilvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister

File:Junichiro Koizumi 20010426.jpg| JapanJunichirō Koizumi, Prime Minister

File:Vladimir Putin official portrait (cropped).jpg| RussiaVladimir Putin, President

File:Tony Blair 1997.jpg| United KingdomTony Blair, Prime Minister

File:George-W-Bush.jpeg| United StatesGeorge W. Bush, President (Host)

</gallery>

File:Romano Prodi 1999 (cropped).jpg| European UnionRomano Prodi, Commission President

</gallery>

Notes

References

Bayne, Nicholas and Robert D. Putnam. (2005). Staying Together: the G8 summit Confronts the 21st Century. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing. ; OCLC 217979297
Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations. London: Routledge. ; ; 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
G8 2004, delegations & documents