8th G7 summit

The 8th G7 Summit was held in Versailles, France from 4 to 6 June 1982. The venue for the summit meetings was at the Palace of Versailles.^[1]

8th G7 summit
The Palace of Versailles, the venue of the 8th G7 summit
Host country	France
Dates	June 4–6, 1982
Venue(s)	Palace of Versailles
Cities	Versailles, Yvelines
Follows	7th G7 summit
Precedes	9th G7 summit

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),^[2] and the President of the European Commission (starting officially in 1981).^[3] 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.^[4]

Leaders at the summit

Summit leaders at the Palace of Versailles (left to right): Gaston Thorn, Zenko Suzuki, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, François Mitterrand, Helmut Schmidt, Pierre Trudeau, Giovanni Spadolini, and Wilfried Martens

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.^[3]

The 8th G7 summit was the last summit for German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini and Japanese Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki.

Participants

These summit participants are the current "core members" of the international forum:^[5][1][6]

Core G7 members Host state and leader are shown in bold text.
Member		Represented by	Title
	Canada	Pierre Trudeau	Prime Minister
	France	François Mitterrand	President
	West Germany	Helmut Schmidt	Chancellor
	Italy	Giovanni Spadolini	Prime Minister
	Japan	Zenkō Suzuki	Prime Minister
	United Kingdom	Margaret Thatcher	Prime Minister
	United States	Ronald Reagan	President
	European Community	Gaston Thorn	President of the Commission
		Wilfried Martens[7]	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.^[4]

Gallery of participating leaders

Core G7 participants

• 
  Canada
  Pierre Trudeau,
  Prime Minister
• 
  France
  François Mitterrand,
  President (Host)
• 
  Germany
  Helmut Schmidt,
  Chancellor
• 
  Italy
  Giovanni Spadolini,
  Prime Minister
• 
  Japan
  Zenkō Suzuki,
  Prime Minister
• 
  United Kingdom
  Margaret Thatcher,
  Prime Minister
• 
  United States
  Ronald Reagan,
  President

• 
  European Community
  Gaston Thorn,
  President of the Commission
• 
  European Community
  Wilfried Martens (Prime Minister of Belgium), rotating President of the Council

See also

• Group of Seven
• VAMAS

Notes

1. Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA): Summit Meetings in the Past.
2. 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 (G8) with the inclusion of Russia starting in 1997.
3. Reuters: "Factbox: The Group of Eight: what is it?", July 3, 2008.
4. Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations, p. 205.
5. 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 3, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
6. MOFA: Summit (8); European Union: "EU and the G8" Archived February 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
7. "Le sommet de Versailles". chateaudeversailles.fr (in French). Retrieved 27 August 2017.

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
• 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

External links

• No official website is created for any G7 summit prior to 1995 -- see the 21st G7 summit.
• University of Toronto: G8 Research Group, G8 Information Centre
  • G7 1982, delegations & documents

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