4th G7 summit
Schaumburg Palace in Bonn
Host countryWest Germany
Dates16–17 July 1978
Participants
Follows3rd G7 summit
Precedes5th G7 summit

The 4th G7 Summit was held at Bonn, West Germany between 16 and 17 July 1978. The venue for the summit meeting was at the former official residence of the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn, the Palais Schaumburg.[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 Valéry 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

Five of the G7 leaders at the 4th G7 Summit. From left to right: Giulio Andreotti, Takeo Fukuda, Jimmy Carter, Helmut Schmidt, and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

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

The 4th G7 summit was the last summit for British Prime Minister James Callaghan and Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda.

Participants

These summit participants are the current "core members" of the international forum:[5][1][6]

Core G7 members
Host state and leader are shown in bold text.
Member Represented by Title
Canada Canada Pierre Trudeau Prime Minister
France France Valéry Giscard d'Estaing President
West Germany West Germany Helmut Schmidt Chancellor
Italy Italy Giulio Andreotti Prime Minister
Japan Japan Takeo Fukuda Prime Minister
United Kingdom United Kingdom James Callaghan Prime Minister
United States United States Jimmy Carter President
European Union European Community Roy Jenkins Commission President
Helmut Schmidt Council 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] This was the first summit where rather than simply issuing joint statements, participants committed themselves to policy decisions.

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA): Summit Meetings in the Past.
  2. ↑ Saunders, Doug. "Weight of the world too heavy for G8 shoulders," Archived 2008-10-11 at the Wayback Machine Globe and Mail (Toronto). July 5, 2008 -- n.b., the G7 becomes the Group of Eight (G7) with the inclusion of Russia starting in 1997.
  3. 1 2 Reuters: "Factbox: The Group of Eight: what is it?", July 3, 2008.
  4. 1 2 Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations, p. 205.
  5. ↑ Rieffel, Lex. "Regional Voices in Global Governance: Looking to 2010 (Part IV)," Archived June 3, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Brookings. March 27, 2009; "core" members (Muskoka 2010 G-8, official site). Archived June 3, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ↑ MOFA: Summit (8); European Union: "EU and the G8" Archived February 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine

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. ISBN 978-0-7546-1185-1; OCLC 43186692
  • Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-16486-3; ISBN 978-0-203-45085-7; OCLC 39013643
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