33rd G8 summit

2007 international leaders meeting

The 33rd G8 summit was held at Kempinski Grand Hotel, 6–8 June 2007. The summit took place in Heiligendamm in the Northern German state of Mecklenburg Vorpommern on the Baltic Coast. The locations of previous G7 / G8 summits to have been hosted by Germany include Bonn (1978, 1985), Munich (1992), and Cologne (1999).

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 Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the initial summit of the Group of Six (G6) in 1975. The G8 summits during the 21st 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.

The G8 is an unofficial annual forum for the leaders of Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Core G8 membersHost state and leader are shown in bold text. Member Represented by Title Canada Stephen Harper Prime Minister France Nicolas Sarkozy President Germany Angela Merkel Chancellor Italy Romano Prodi Prime Minister Japan Shinzō Abe Prime Minister Russia Vladimir Putin President United Kingdom Tony Blair Prime Minister United States George W. Bush President European Union José Manuel Barroso Commission President Angela Merkel Council PresidentGuest Invitees (Countries) Member Represented by Title Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika President Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva President China Hu Jintao President Ethiopia Meles Zenawi Prime Minister Ghana John Kufuor President India Manmohan Singh Prime Minister Mexico Felipe Calderón President Nigeria Umaru Musa Yar'Adua President Senegal Abdoulaye Wade President South Africa Thabo Mbeki PresidentGuest Invitees (International Institutions) Member Represented by Title African Union John Kufuor Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konaré Chairperson Commonwealth of Independent States Nursultan Nazarbayev Executive Secretary International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei Director General United Nations Ban Ki moon Secretary General UNESCO Kōichirō Matsuura Director General World Bank Paul Wolfowitz President World Health Organization Margaret Chan Director General World Trade Organization Pascal Lamy Director General

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. In any event, security for the world leaders and for the venue remained a high priority throughout.

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.

At the end of the 32nd G8 summit in Russia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reported that the agenda of the G8 summit in 2007 had not been determined, but "the struggle against poverty across the globe will be a priority." Transparency of the financial markets, intellectual property and energy efficiency will also be on the agenda, as well as talks about climate change. On 13 April 2007, Oil Change International released a reported leaked draft of the economic communique. The G8 financial ministers began pre summit meetings on 30 May 2007.

As with all recent G8 summits, the event drew large protests, part of the anti globalization movement. The main demonstration took place 2 June 2007 in the nearby city of Rostock and was the starting event for a week of protests and blockades. Organizers spoke of up to 80,000 participants, while police put the figure at an estimated 25,000. Towards the end of the 2 June protest, violent clashes occurred between protesters and the police, essentially limited to a small area at the harbor. Initially, these drew wide media overstatement, with initial reports claiming nearly 1000 people injured (433 German police officers, 30–33 of them requiring hospitalisation, and 520 protesters, 20 requiring hospitalisation). Later, these figures were disputed. According to police estimates, 2,000 autonomists led the riots, setting fire to a total of 3 cars and setting up makeshift barricades; many peaceful protesters fled the action and ensuing police response in panic. Over 1,000 protesters were detained, and nine of them were tried and condemned during the summit. Hundreds were expelled.

The G8 summit is an international event which is observed and reported by news media, but the G8's continuing relevance after more than 30 years is somewhat unclear. More than one analyst suggests that a G8 summit is not the place to flesh out the details of any difficult or controversial policy issue in the context of a three day event. Rather, the meeting offers an opportunity 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."

In a non binding communiqué issued on Thursday 7 June, it was announced that the G8 nations would 'aim to at least halve global CO2 emissions by 2050'. The details which would enable this salutatory goal to be achieved were left to be negotiated. It was anticipated that the G8 Environment ministers would work together within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in a process that would also include the major emerging economies. Groups of countries would also be able to reach additional agreements on achieving the goal outside and in parallel with the United Nations process. The G8 also announced their desire to use the proceeds from the auction of emission rights and other financial tools to support climate protection projects in developing countries. French President Nicolas Sarkozy would have preferred a binding figure for emissions reduction to have been set. This was apparently blocked by US President George W. Bush until the other major greenhouse gas emitting countries, like India and China, make similar commitments.

En route to the summit, Bush attempted to assuage Russian concerns over US plans to construct a missile defense complex in Poland and the Czech Republic with remarks appearing to invite Russian participation in the project. At the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by suggesting that the radar installments for the proposed missile defence system be placed in Azerbaijan. Bush, in turn, responded by describing Putin's ideas as "an interesting suggestion".

Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the establishment of the "Heiligendamm Process" through which the full institutionalisation of the permanent dialogue between the G8 countries and the 5 greatest emerging economies will be implemented. This process puts an end to the enlargement debate of the G8 into a hypothetical G9, G11, etc. since Merkel declared "The objective is the cohesion of all these countries into a single group which will be called G8+5".

The Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA) was established at the 31st G8 summit at :Gleneagles, Scotland in the United Kingdom in 2005. Since that time, the ICA's annual meeting is traditionally hosted by the country holding the Presidency of the G8—in Russia in 2007.

Contrary to French TV, the Belgian TV network diffused a video of Sarkozy who appeared to be drunk after a chat with Putin.

In her written memoirs, former US First Lady Laura Bush suggests that members of the United States delegation, including President and Mrs. Bush, may have been poisoned while at the summit. Later reports suggested the President and First Lady may have been victims of Havana syndrome.

Heiligendamm is situated on the Baltic near the city Rostock, and is the oldest seaside resort in Germany, developed in 1793 as the seaside meeting place of nobility and high society close to Frederick Francis I, Duke of Mecklenburg. It was selected as the location for the G8 summit due to its isolated location, in anticipation of protests such as those in Gleneagles and St Petersburg. The summit site was fenced off by 12 km long barrier, costing an approximate EUR 12.4 million. Heiligendamm used to be the summer getaway of the Russian imperial family, who were related to the Dukes of Mecklenburg. For the occasion of the G8 summit, a former summer residence of the imperial family was demolished to make space for a media centre,

Security precautions included a $17 million, 8 foot high, 7.5 mile long fence topped with barbed and razor wire, which encompassed the landward access to the resort; but no protests were reported from the suppliers of the fencing materials.