World Organisations: G8

The Group of Eight (G8, and formerly the G6 or Group of Six) is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of six major economies: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1976, Canada joined the group (thus creating the G7). In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8. G8 ministers also meet throughout the year, such as the G7/8 finance ministers (who meet four times a year), G8 foreign ministers, or G8 environment ministers.

Each calendar year, the responsibility of hosting the G8 rotates through the member states in the following order:
France, United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada.

The holder of the presidency sets the agenda, hosts the summit for that year, and determines which ministerial meetings will take place.

Lately, both France and the United Kingdom have expressed a desire to expand the group to include five developing countries, referred to as the Outreach Five (O5) or the Plus Five: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa. These countries have participated as guests in previous meetings, which are sometimes called G8+5.

With the G-20 major economies growing in stature since the 2008 Washington summit, world leaders from the group announced at their Pittsburgh summit on September 25, 2009, that the group will replace the G8 as the main economic council of wealthy nations.

Annual summit

The annual G8 leaders summit is attended by eight of the world's most powerful heads of government. However, The meeting is to bring a range of complex and sometimes inter-related issues. The G8 summit brings leaders together not so they can dream up quick fixes, but to talk and think about them together.

The member country holding the G8 presidency is responsible for organizing and hosting the year's summit, held for three days in mid-year.

	Date	Host country	Host leader	Location held		Notes
1st	November 15–17, 1975	France	Valéry Giscard d'Estaing	Rambouillet (Castle of Rambouillet)		G6 Summit
2nd	June 27–28, 1976	United States	Gerald R. Ford	Dorado, Puerto Rico		Also called "Rambouillet II;" Canada joins the group, forming the G7
3rd	May 7–8, 1977	United Kingdom	James Callaghan	London		President of the European Commission is invited to join the annual G-7 summits
4th	July 16–17, 1978	Germany	Helmut Schmidt	Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia
5th	June 28–29, 1979	Japan	Masayoshi Ōhira	Tokyo
6th	June 22–23, 1980	Italy	Francesco Cossiga	Venice
7th	July 20–21, 1981	Canada	Pierre E. Trudeau	Montebello, Quebec
30th	June 8–10, 2004	United States	George W. Bush	Sea Island, Georgia		A record number of leaders from 12 different nations accepted their invitations here. Amongst a couple of veteran nations, the others were: Ghana, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Yemen and Uganda. Also, the state funeral of former president Ronald Reagan took place in Washington during the summit.
31st	July 6–8, 2005	United Kingdom	Tony Blair	Gleneagles, Scotland		The G8+5 was officially formed. On the second day of the meeting, suicide bombers killed 52 people on the London Underground and a bus. Nations that were invited for the first time were Ethiopia and Tanzania. The African Union and the International Energy Agency made their debut here.
32nd	July 15–17, 2006	Russia	Vladimir Putin	Strelna, St. Petersburg		First G8 Summit on Russian soil. Also, the International Atomic Energy Agency and UNESCO made their debut here.
33rd	June 6–8, 2007	Germany	Angela Merkel	Heiligendamm, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern		Seven different international organizations accepted their invitations to this Summit. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Commonwealth of Independent States made their debut here.
34th	July 7–9, 2008	Japan	Yasuo Fukuda	Toyako (Lake Toya), Hokkaido		Nations that accepted their G8 Summit invitations for the first time are: Australia, Indonesia and South Korea.
35th	July 8–10, 2009	Italy	Silvio Berlusconi	L'Aquila, Abruzzo		This G8 Summit was originally planned to be in La Maddalena (Sardinia), but was moved to L'Aquila as a way of showing Prime Minister Berlusconi's desire to help the region in and around L'Aquila after the earthquake that hit the area on the April 6th, 2009. Nations that accepted their invitations for the first time were: Angola, Denmark, Netherlands and Spain. A record of TEN (10) international organizations were represented in this G8 Summit. For the first time, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Food Programme, and the International Labour Organization accepted their invitations.
36th	June 25–26, 2010	Canada	Stephen Harper	Huntsville, Ontario		Malawi, Colombia, Haiti, and Jamaica accepted their invitations for the first time.
37th	May 26–27, 2011	France	Nicolas Sarkozy	Deauville, Basse-Normandie		Guinea, Niger, Côte d'Ivoire and Tunisia accepted their invitations for the first time. Also, the League of Arab States made its debut to the meeting.
38th	2012	United States	Barack Obama	Chicago
39th	2013	United Kingdom	David Cameron	TBD{To be decided}		Britain hopes to refocus the event, possibly by discussing a single issue such as the Middle East and inviting key players, such as Turkey or Israel. David Cameron is critical of the value and cost of the G8 if there is too much focus on communiques as opposed to building trust between world leaders. He has been looking at the idea of attaching the G8 summit to another event such as the UN general assembly.
40th	2014	Russia	TBD	TBD