The 9th G7 Summit was held at Williamsburg, Virginia, United States between May 28 and 30, 1983. The venue for the summit meetings was Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.

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), and the President of the European Commission (starting officially in 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 first Group of Six (G6) summit in 1975.

Leaders at the summit

thumb|Summit leaders in front of the colonial [[Capitol (Williamsburg, Virginia)|Capitol building. (Left to right): Pierre Trudeau, Gaston Thorn, Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand, Ronald Reagan, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Margaret Thatcher, and Amintore Fanfani]]

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.

<!-- NOTE: format order = C•F•G•I•J•UK•USA + EU

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

+

-->

{| class="wikitable"

|-

|colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background:Gainsboro" |Core G7 members<br><small>Host state and leader are shown in bold text.</small>

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

! colspan=2 | Member

! Represented by

! Title

|-

!

| Canada

| Pierre Trudeau

| Prime Minister

|-

!

| France

| François Mitterrand

| President

|-

!

| West Germany

| Helmut Kohl

| Chancellor

|-

!

| Italy

| Amintore Fanfani

| Prime Minister

|-

!

| Japan

| Yasuhiro Nakasone

| Prime Minister

|-

!

| United Kingdom

| Margaret Thatcher

| Prime Minister

|-

!

| United States

| Ronald Reagan

| President

|-

! rowspan="2" |

| rowspan="2" | European Community

| Gaston Thorn

| Commission President

|-

| Helmut Kohl

| Council President

|}

Issues

thumb|alt=Ronald Reagan and advisers at Williamsburg|US President [[Ronald Reagan and his advisers at Williamsburg]]

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. which stands as quite unique in terms of G-7 communiques as it was a short ten point declaration and it was read in its entirety by Reagan seated before the other leaders The significance of the Declaration cannot be over-emphasized as it was the free market principles agreed to by the leaders at the summit that provided an international environment of free trade and investment that propelled the world economies out of economic recession toward durable economic growth of twenty years. The declaration was prepared by a small team of NSC advisers close to Reagan.

The Williamsburg Economic Summit was the only international meeting chaired by Reagan.

Core G7 participants

<gallery class="center" widths="90">

File:Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau 1975 (UPI press photo) (cropped).jpg| Canada<br />Pierre Trudeau,<br />Prime Minister

File:President François Mitterrand in 1983.jpg| France<br />François Mitterrand,<br />President

File:Helmut Kohl (1996) cropped.jpg| Germany<br />Helmut Kohl,<br />Chancellor

File:Amintore Fanfani 1983-04-14.jpg| Italy<br />Amintore Fanfani,<br />Prime Minister

File:Yasuhiro Nakasone 19821127.jpg| Japan<br />Yasuhiro Nakasone,<br />Prime Minister

File:Margaret Thatcher (1983).jpg| United Kingdom<br />Margaret Thatcher,<br />Prime Minister

File:Official Portrait of President Reagan 1981-cropped.jpg| United States<br />Ronald Reagan,<br />President (Host)

</gallery>

<gallery class="center" widths="90">

File:Gaston Thorn (1984).jpg| European Commission<br />Gaston Thorn,<br />President

</gallery>

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. ; OCLC 43186692
  • Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations. London: Routledge. ; ;
  • 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 1983, delegations & documents