6th G7 summit

The 6th G7 Summit was held at Venice, Italy between June 22 and 23rd, 1980. The venue for the summit meetings was the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in the Venetian lagoon.[1]

6th G7 summit
San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice
Host countryItaly
DatesJune 22–23, 1980
Follows5th G7 summit
Precedes7th G7 summit

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 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

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] Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ōhira suffered a fatal heart attack on June 12, only days before the summit; and his colleague, Foreign Minister Saburō Ōkita, led the delegation which represented Japan in his place. Others joining Ōkita in Venice were Finance Minister Noboru Takeshita and the Minister of International Trade and Industry Yoshitake Sasaki who attended the foreign minister's meeting in Ōkita's place.[5]

The 6th G7 summit was the last summit for French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and U.S. President Jimmy Carter. It was also the first and only summit for Italian Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga.

Participants

These summit participants are the current "core members" of the international forum:[6][1][7]

Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ōhira had died from a heart attack just days before, and the acting PM was unable to attend.

Core G7 members
Host state and leader are shown in bold text.
Member Represented by Title
Canada Pierre Trudeau Prime Minister
France Valéry Giscard d'Estaing President
West Germany Helmut Schmidt Chancellor
Italy Francesco Cossiga Prime Minister
Japan Saburō Ōkita Minister for Foreign Affairs
United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister
United States Jimmy Carter President
European Commission Roy Jenkins Commission President
Francesco Cossiga 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]

See also

Notes
  1. Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA): Summit Meetings in the Past.
  2. Saunders, Doug. "Weight of the world too heavy for G8 shoulders," Archived 2009-04-29 at WebCite 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. Reuters: "Factbox: The Group of Eight: what is it?", July 3, 2008.
  4. Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations, p. 205.
  5. Stokes, Henry Scott. "Japan's Prime Minister Ohira Dies At 70 as a Critical Election Nears; Japan's Prime Minister Dies at 70 After Heart Attack Plans for Venice Meeting," New York Times. June 12, 1980.
  6. 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
  7. 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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