29th G8 summit

29th G8 summit
29th G8 Summit official logo
Host country	France
Dates	June 1-3

The 29th G8 summit took place in Évian-les-Bains, France, in June 2003. As is usual for G8 summits, there were a range of protests.

Overview

The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada starting in 1976. The G8, meeting for the first time in 1997, was formed with the addition of Russia. In addition, the President of the European Commission has been formally included in summits since 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 Giscard d'Estaing and Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the initial summit of the Group of Six (G6) in 1975.

The G8 summits during the twenty-first century have inspired widespread debates, protests and demonstrations; and the two- or three-day event becomes more than the sum of its parts, elevating the participants, the issues and the venue as focal points for activist pressure.

Composition of summit leaders

File:EVIAN famille4-2003.jpg

G8 official "family photo" at Évian summit, 2003.
Left to right: Prodi, Koizumi, Schröder, Chrétien, Putin, Chirac, Bush, Blair, Berlusconi, Simitis.

The composition of the G8 summit is a perennial topic. The G8 summits after 1997 considered the President of the European Commission as a permanently welcome participant in all meetings and decision-making, which means that this G8 summit has nine essential participants.

Permanent G8 participants

Leaders of the G8 members included:

• Canada - Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
• France - President Jacques Chirac.
• Germany - Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
• Italy - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
• Japan - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
• Russia - President Vladimir Putin.
• United Kingdom - Prime Minister Tony Blair.
• United States - President George W. Bush.

Invited (partial participation)

File:EVIAN famille1 2003.jpg

G8 official "family photo" at Évian summit, 2003. G8 leaders plus others invited to attend and participate.

The leaders of a number of non-G8 countries were invited to the summit (Algeria, Brazil, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa) as well as the President of the Swiss Confederation and representatives of the UN, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO, providing a unique opportunity for an exchange of views on issues relating to sustained growth and international co-operation.

National leaders

• Algeria
• Brazil
• China
• Egypt
• Greece
• India
• Malaysia
• Mexico
• Nigeria
• Saudi Arabia
• Senegal
• South Africa
• Switzerland

Heads of international organizations

Leaders of the major international organizations were invited to attend the summit.

• United Nations
• World Bank'
• International Monetary Fund
• World Trade Organization
• European Union - President Romano Prodi and Konstantinos Simitis.

Priorities

Traditionally, the host country of the G8 summit sets the agenda for negotiations, which take place primarily amongst multi-national civil servants in the weeks before the summit itself, leading to a joint declaration which all countries can agree to sign.

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.

Citizens' responses and authorities' counter-responses

Martin Shaw after his fall from the Aubonne bridge

The protests, as well as the usual demonstrations, included a protest at the Aubonne bridge in Switzerland between Lausanne and Geneva, in which two activists suspended themselves from the bridge via a rope, with the rope stretching across the bridge, halting traffic and displaying a banner. As well as arresting various protestors, the police also cut the rope, causing one of the protestors, Briton Martin Shaw, to plunge 20m into a rocky river, resulting in multiple fractures (the other activist, German Gesine Wenzel, was caught by other protestors and could later abseil safely). In January 2005, following a long campaign, a judge said that the police involved should be charged with causing bodily harm by negligence. However in a ruling on 17 February 2006 a judge has acquitted the two police officers found responsible on the grounds that their actions had been based on "a series of unfortunate misunderstandings" and therefore were not criminal 1 2.

Business opportunity

For some, the G8 summit became a profit-generating event; as for example, the official G8 Summit magazines which have been published under the auspices of the host nations for distribution to all attendees since 1998.

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. 10-ISBN 0-754-61185-X; 13-ISBN 978-0-754-61185-1; OCLC 43186692
• Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations. London: Routledge. 10-ISBN 0-415-16486-9; 13-ISBN 978-0-415-16486-3

External links

• Official G8 website: Évian summit, 2003; n.b., 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
  • G8 2003, delegations & documents
• Campaign relating to police behaviour at a protest at the Aubonne bridge
• Évian - Protest Reports & Photos