6th G7 summit

The 6th G7 Summit was held at Venice, Italy between 22 and 23 June 1980. The venue for the summit meetings was the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in the Venetian lagoon.^[1]

6th G7 summit
San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice
Host country	Italy
Dates	22–23 June 1980
Follows	5th G7 summit
Precedes	7th 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

The G7 is an unofficial annual forum for the leaders of Canada, the European Commission, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.^[3] Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ōhira suffered a fatal heart attack on 12 June, only days before the summit; and his colleague, Foreign Minister Saburō Ōkita, led the delegation which represented Japan in his place. Others joining Ōkita in Venice were Finance Minister Noboru Takeshita and the Minister of International Trade and Industry Yoshitake Sasaki who attended the foreign minister's meeting in Ōkita's place.^[5]

The 6th G7 summit was the last summit for French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and US President Jimmy Carter. It was also the first and only summit for Italian Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga.

Participants

Color pic of G7 Attendees with a canal in the background. In attendance were: Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Saburo Okita; Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau; German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt; French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing; Italian Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga; U.S. President Jimmy Carter; U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; and European Union Commission President Roy Jenkins.

These summit participants are the current "core members" of the international forum:^[6][1][7]

Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ōhira had died from a heart attack just days before, and the acting PM was unable to attend.

Core G7 members Host state and leader are shown in bold text.
Member		Represented by	Title
	Canada	Pierre Trudeau	Prime Minister
	France	Valéry Giscard d'Estaing	President
	West Germany	Helmut Schmidt	Chancellor
	Italy	Francesco Cossiga	Prime Minister
	Japan	Saburō Ōkita	Minister for Foreign Affairs
	United Kingdom	Margaret Thatcher	Prime Minister
	United States	Jimmy Carter	President
	European Commission	Roy Jenkins	Commission President
		Francesco Cossiga	Council President

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
  Valéry Giscard d'Estaing,
  President
• 
  Germany
  Helmut Schmidt,
  Chancellor
• 
  Italy
  Francesco Cossiga,
  Prime Minister (Host)
• 
  Japan
  Saburō Ōkita,
  Minister for Foreign Affairs
• 
  United Kingdom
  Margaret Thatcher,
  Prime Minister
• 
  United States
  Jimmy Carter,
  President

• 
  European Union
  Roy Jenkins,
  Commission President

See also

• G8

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 (G7) 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. Stokes, Henry Scott. "Japan's Prime Minister Ohira Dies At 70 as a Critical Election Nears; Japan's Prime Minister Dies at 70 After Heart Attack Plans for Venice Meeting," New York Times. June 12, 1980.
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 3, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
7. MOFA: Summit (8); European Union: "EU and the G8" Archived February 26, 2007, 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
• 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 1980, delegations & documents