Quint (international coalition)

NATO Quint members US President Barack Obama, Francois Hollande, David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Matteo Renzi, with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during the 2014 Wales summit.

Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Matteo Renzi, David Cameron and Francois Hollande participating in a video teleconference.

David Cameron, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, François Hollande and Matteo Renzi in 2016.

The Quint is an informal decision-making group consisting of the United States and the Big Four of Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom). It operates as a "directoire" of various entities such as NATO and the G7/G20.

The US, France and the United Kingdom are "nuclear-weapon states", while Germany and Italy have nuclear weapon sharing programs.

History

The idea of a trilateral axis on foreign policy issues was proposed by French President Charles de Gaulle to his British and American counterparts (see Fouchet Plan). However, that plan was never implemented. Meetings between the foreign ministers of these three countries and West Germany became known as Quad meetings around 1980. They were largely symbolic and led to no real decision. The Quint in its current form seems to have begun as the Contact Group excluding Russia. Nowadays, Quint leaders discuss all major international topics participating in video conferences once every two weeks or meeting one another in various forums such as NATO, the OSCE, the G20 and the UN. The Quint meets also at ministerial and experts' level. Quint countries along with Russia and China participate together in global discussions as in the Syrian case, they have joint statements and meetings as in the case of Lebanon.

See also

• Great power
• Power (international relations)
• Thermonuclear weapon