Formed in 1975 by the six biggest industrial democracies -- the
United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, and Italy -- and joined by Canada
a year later. Starting in 1991, the USSR, then Russia, began dropping by for
post-summit conferences. In 1994 Russia became a regular visitor, and in 1998
it became a full participant
in what now became the G8, although the G7 has continued to function alongside
the formal summits, presumably
just to confuse the average newspaper reader. These days, the G8 meets
annually, and by turns, in the
capital, another big-deal city (Montreal, Florence), or a jewel-like historic
landmark or golf resort (Versailles, Williamsburg, Gleneagles) of the host
nation, with everyone's
finance minister (our Treasury secretary) and all the
prime ministers (or presidents) in attendance, at which point it considers, and
attempts to bring into line, matters of economic policy and planning, then
schmoozes, often managing to work out an intractable problem or two over one of the six-course dinners prepared by the host country
to show off the national cuisine. With old-style Kennedy-and-Khrushchev-type summit
meetings largely a thing of the past, the G8 get-togethers have become some of
the most important meetings in the world, real pileups of power and money at
which issues as broad
as terrorism and the environment are hashed out, often leading to the creation
or resuscitation of some new international organization to "handle” the
problem. (‘An
Incomplete Education’, by Judy Jones and William Wilson)
