THE GROUP of Eight industrialised economies finished their annual summit in Deauville yesterday by calling on Muammar Gadafy to go and noting some recovery in the world economy. They comprise 43 per cent of that economy but only 13 per cent of the world’s population.
No longer do they command the power of previous decades since the G8 was set up in the 1970s. Another summit in Cannes next November, also under French chairmanship, will bring the larger and more representative Group of 20 together to give more authoritative leadership, notably on international economic affairs and climate change.
This prompts serious questions as to why two such similar meetings are necessary at this point in the transition towards a more diverse and multipolar world. Russia was added to the G8 after the end of the cold war, but China remains conspicuously absent, notwithstanding its remarkable economic role now and in the future. In this setting the G8 is an extended family of western powers rather than a genuine centre of global authority; it projects French and other influence depending on who chairs it from year to year. Links with the G20 are ad hoc and pragmatic rather than institutionalised. It becomes a way to pre-cook but less to pre-determine wider international agendas. How the G8 can hold on to international legitimacy is harder and harder to see.
France, Germany, Canada, Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Russia and the European Union as a whole nonetheless bring together formidable geopolitical influence and industrial strength. That is readily seen in their agenda and conclusions, which are becoming more political, leaving economic issues particularly increasingly to the G20. On a realist reading of power this still matters, as indicated by their conclusion that Gadafy should step down and reports that France and Britain are stepping up their military and political involvement with rebel forces in Libya. President Obama is content to leave this forward role to them, and is satisfied that Russia went along with this, which sends out a wider political message – as does their financial help for Egypt and Tunisia as they prepare for elections in the midst of collapsing tourism revenues.
This summit also discussed nuclear safety after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, hearing plans to develop alternative energy sources rather than nuclear ones there. In a significant admission of its diminishing capacity, the G8 admitted failing to meet aid commitments to Africa made at Gleneagles seven years ago. Since then African development has been driven more by Chinese investment and trade than by Western aid. Another topical issue concerned state regulation of the internet, beginning a debate that will surely continue.
Their statement on the global economy points to uneven if unbalanced recovery. A sharp increase in commodity prices and their excessive volatility are also underlined. This will affect the world’s one billion or so poorest people most, a concern that used to figure more prominently than now in G8 conclusions. Here too this looks like a more and more anachronistic institution.