From G7 to G8: The G7/G8 System

From G7 To G8:
Evolution, Role and Documentation of a Unique Institution

Peter I. Hajnal

April 1998

The G7/G8 System

Over the years, an elaborate system has evolved around, and in addition to, the annual summit meetings of the G7/G8 which form the basis of the institution. Related meetings take place several times during the year to discuss and make decisions on summit-related issues. Table 5 presents a summary of the G7/G8 system.

If the leaders' summits constitute the apex of the G7/G8 system, its second layer consists of the progressively intensifying and increasingly widespread meetings of ministers. A number of these ministerial meetings take place on a regular basis, while others are ad hoc affairs.

Finance ministers of the G7 have met annually at the summit site since 1975, and the 1986 Tokyo Summit officially set up the G7 finance ministers' group as a separate entity that meets four or more times a year, usually attended also by the chairmen of the central banks of the Seven and often by the Managing Director of the IMF. An even more exclusive club was the "Group of Fivet1 finance ministers (the Seven minus Italy and Canada), dating back to the Library Group and its aftermath and first running parallel with, then subsumed by, the G7 finance ministers. The Plaza Accord of 22 September 1985, which began the "managed floating" of exchange rates, was a notable achievement of the Group of Five. The Louvre Accord of 22 February 1987, aimed at further stabilization of exchange rates, was the result of a meeting of the G6 (G7 minus Italy) finance ministers.

With the creation of the European Central Bank and the launching of the common currency euro on January 1, 1999, there is a strong possibility of the G7 finance ministers meetings changing into a format similar to that of the Trade Ministers' Quadrilateral described below. The EU speaks with one voice in trade matters; the European Monetary Union will lead to a similar phenomenon in the realm of financial matters, with representation of the U.S., Canada, Japan, and the EU, as well as G7 member United Kingdom, which has opted out of EMU for the time being. It would be interesting if this were to lead to a new G5.

G7 (now G8) foreign ministers have also met annually at the summit site since 1975. In addition, the foreign ministers have, since 1984, met annually for a working dinner in New York in September, around the time of the opening of the UN General Assembly.

G7 trade ministers met at the 1978, 1993 and 1995 summits, and the 1981 Ottawa Summit created the Trade Ministers Quadrilateral ("the Quad") which brings together ministers from the United States, Canada, Japan and the European Union. Starting in 1982, the Quad has generally met three or four times per year. The Quad meeting held just before the 1993 Tokyo Summit was especially important because it hammered out an agreement on market access to manufactured goods--an agreement that was a catalyst for the completion of the stalled Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations.

G7 (now G8) environment ministers first met in Germany in the spring of 1992, then in Rio de Janeiro at the site of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, or the Earth Summit) in June 1992, in Florence, Italy on 12-13 March 1994, in Hamilton, Canada on 30 April-i May 1995, in Cabourg, France on 9-10 May 1996, in Miami, Florida, U.S., on 5-6 May 1997, and in Kent, United Kingdom on 3-5 April 1998.

Employment ministers' first meeting was the "Jobs Summit"in Detroit on 14-15 March 1994 (not truly a summit; the participants were ministers of labor, industry, trade and finance). Subsequent employment ministerial meetings took place in Lille, France on 1-2 April 1996; Kobe, Japan on 28-29 November 1997; and London on 21-22 February 1998 ("G8 Conference on Growth, Employability and Inclusion"), bringing together ministers for economic, financial and employment issues.

A G7 ministerial conference on the "global inlormation society" took place in Brussels on 24-26 February 1995, with the participation of relevant ministers; for example, Canada was represented by the ministers of industry and of heritage, and the Secretary of State for Science, Research and Development; the U.S. delegation was led by the Secretary of Commerce, but the Vice-President delivered the keynote speech. For the first time in a G7 meeting, industrial leaders participated alongside government representatives. The conference adopted eight core policy principles and set out several pilot projects. The Halifax Summit welcomed these results and the proposal that a follow-up information society conference be held in South Africa in the spring of 1996. ₃₁ This "Information Society and Development Conference" met in Midrand, South Africa on 13-15 May 1996, but as a much larger gathering, with representatives from forty countries and eighteen international organizations.

There were ministerial meetings on terrorism: in Ottawa, Canada, on 19 December 1995 and in Paris, France, on 30 July 1996. A related G8 conference on land-transportation anti-terrorism measures met in Washington, D.C. on 22-23 April 1997.

Several ad hoc G7/G8 ministerial meetings should be noted:

G7 foreign and finance ministers, with Russia also present, assembled in Tokyo on 15 April 1993 in preparation for the 1993 Tokyo Summit, to discuss support for reform in Russia;
G7 foreign ministers, with Russian participation, held a Conference on Partnership for Economic Transformation in Ukraine in Winnipeg, Canada in October 1994;
a conference on the global marketplace for small and medium-sized enterprises took place in Bonn, Germany, on 7-9 April 1997;
a G8 justice ministers' meeting on crime was held in Washington, D.C. on 10 December 1997.
a G8 energy ministers' meeting took place in Moscow on 31 March-i April 1998.
a G8 foreign and finance ministers' meeting is to be held in London a week before the 1998 Birmingham Summit to prepare for the summit agenda and to deal with issues not on the agenda of this "heads only" summit.

In addition to the leaders' summit meetings and the various ministerial meetings, the G7/G8 system has a third component: sherpas meet several times a year as part of their function to prepare for the forthcoming summit. Between Naples and Halifax, for example, the sherpas met on 23-24 January in Ottawa, 23-25 March in Vancouver and 25-27 May in Toronto, and the final sherpa meeting, as usual, took place at the summit itself. National sherpa teams generally include, in addition to the sherpa, two sous-sherpas (one for finance, the other for foreign affairs) and a political director.

Besides these regularly scheduled G7 ministerial and sherpa meetings, several ad hoc meetings have been and will likely continue to be held, and some ad hoc meetings may become a regular series as was the case with the environment ministers' conferences or the employment and terrorism meetings.

Ad hoc task forces and working groups are also part of the G7/G8 system. Over the years, the G7 summits have established several such groups; for example, the 1989 Summit set up a Financial Action Task Force to coordinate efforts to fight drug-related money laundering. Other official G7/G8 groups include the Senior Experts on Transnational Organized Crime; the Chemical Action Task Force (which was established by the 1990 Houston Summit to monitor the movement of chemical precursors used in the manufacturing of drugs) and reported to the 1991 London Summit; and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

Another institutional development was the establishment--by the 1993 Tokyo Summit--of the Support Implementation Group (SIG) on assistance to Russia. Japan chaired the SIG briefly and temporarily, succeeded by the U.S. as chair of the group, located in Moscow. ₃₂ The group's mandate was troubleshooting rather than administering actual aid programs. SIG facilitated the implementation of G7 assistance to Russia through information sharing and coordination among the G7, and through consultation with Russian organizations, international financial institutions and non-G7 countries. SIG had a secretariat whose role was to coordinate G7 action concerning taxation aspects of assistance; to serve as an information source on external assistance to Russia; to be a research center on problems of assistance implementation; and to facilitate the coordination of assistance, bringing together Russians and external donors. ₃₃₀ On 31 December 1997, SIG ceased functioning as a secretariat to G7 embassies on assistance to Russia. ₃₄

Not everyone sees the G7 institution as a true system. According to W. R. Smyser, "[d]uring the 1980s, the G-7 system split into two separate structures related more in name than in reality ... . The summits became political and representational. Economic coordination moved back to the finance ministers. Hodges concurs, stating that "[t]he summit is perceived in the UK as separate from the finance ministers' process ... ." De Guttry, on the other hand, comments that "the degree of institutionalization, bureaucratization and formalization of ... [the G7 system's] new structures is ... higher and more sophisticated than that of the summit itself. ₃₅₀ It is interesting to note, however, that the SIG Secretariat in Moscow carefully characterized itself as a "flexible non-institutional technical secretariat. " ₃₆

Notes:

Note 31: Halifax Summit Communique, paragraph 10. In United States, Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, US Department of State Dispatch 6, Supplement No. 4 (July 1995), p. 6. See also the University of Toronto G7 Information Centre at URL: www. library.utoronto.ca/www/g7/grow.htm. Back.

Note 32: Michael Hodges, "More Efficiency, Less Dignity: British Perspectives on the Future Role and Working of the G-7," 156. Back.

Note 33: "G7 Support Implementation Group" Web Site. www.g7sig.org/. Back.

Note 34: Ibid. URL: www.g7.sig.org/html/announce/announce.htm. Back.

Note 35: W. R. Smyser, "Goodbye, G-7," The Washington Quarterly 16, No. 1 (Winter 1993), 20; Michael Hodges, "More Efficiency, Less Dignity: British Perspectives on the Future Role and Working of the G-7," 142; Andrea de Guttry, "The Institutional Configuration of the G-7 in the New International Scenario," 72. Back.

Note 36: G7 Support Implementation Group, Web site. URL: www. g7sig. org/html/SIG/SIGRole.htm. Back.