12th G7 summit

12th G7 summit
State Guesthouse, Akasaka Palace[1]
Host countryJapan
DatesMay 4–6, 1986
Venue(s)Tokyo Imperial Palace
CitiesTokyo
Follows11th G7 summit
Precedes13th G7 summit

The 12th G7 Summit was held in Tokyo, Japan between May 4 and May 6, 1986. The venue for the summit meetings was the State Guesthouse in Tokyo, Japan.[2]

The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada (since 1976),[3] and the President of the European Commission (starting officially in 1981).[4] 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 first Group of Six (G6) summit in 1975.[5]

Leaders at the summit

Summit leaders at the Tokyo Imperial Palace Gardens: (left to right) Jacques Delors, Bettino Craxi, Ruud Lubbers, Helmut Kohl, Ronald Reagan, Yasuhiro Nakasone, François Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, and Brian Mulroney

The G7 is an unofficial annual forum for the leaders of Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.[4]

The 12th G7 summit was the last summit for Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi.

Participants

These summit participants are the current "core members" of the international forum:[6][2][7]

Core G7 members
Host state and leader are shown in bold text.
Member Represented by Title
Canada Canada Brian Mulroney Prime Minister
France France François Mitterrand President
West Germany West Germany Helmut Kohl Chancellor
Italy Italy Bettino Craxi Prime Minister
Japan Japan Yasuhiro Nakasone Prime Minister
United Kingdom United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister
United States United States Ronald Reagan President
European Union European Community Jacques Delors President of the Commission
Netherlands Ruud Lubbers President of the Council

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.[5]

Core G7 participants

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Cabinet Office, Government of Japan; State Guest House, Akasaka Palace Archived 2013-11-04 at the Wayback Machine; retrieved 2013-6-19.
  2. ^ a b Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA): Summit Meetings in the Past.
  3. ^ Saunders, Doug. "Weight of the world too heavy for G8 shoulders," Archived 2008-10-11 at the Wayback Machine Globe and Mail (Toronto). July 5, 2008 -- n.b., the G7 becomes the Group of Eight (G7) with the inclusion of Russia starting in 1997.
  4. ^ a b Reuters: "Factbox: The Group of Eight: what is it?", July 3, 2008.
  5. ^ a b Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations, p. 205.
  6. ^ Rieffel, Lex. "Regional Voices in Global Governance: Looking to 2010 (Part IV)," Archived June 3, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Brookings. March 27, 2009; "core" members (Muskoka 2010 G-8, official site). Archived June 2, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ MOFA: Summit (12); European Union: "EU and the G8" Archived 2007-02-26 at the Wayback Machine

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. ISBN 978-0-7546-1185-1; OCLC 43186692( Archived 2012-11-10 at the Wayback Machine 2009-04-29)
  • Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-16486-3; ISBN 978-0-203-45085-7; OCLC 39013643