That was understandable, for the summit in L'Aquila was billed as `unique'
by the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi—unique in terms of
the number of countries that attended the summit this time. Not that G8 was in
a hurry to add a few more to the existing eight. The group originally began as
G6, comprising the world's major industrialized democracies—the US, the
UK, West Germany, Japan, France, and Italy—which came together in
Rambouillet, in 1975, to form Group of 6 or G6, in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis
and its aftermath. Canada joined the group the following year, making it G7.
And then, in 1994, Russia was allowed to hold separate meetings with the
G7 leaders after the annual summit. This informal arrangement was
called G7+1, which continued till 1997 when Russia formally joined the group,
making it G8.
An annual affair among the elite group of nations, what was
special about the G8 Summit in July this year was the adoption of an `expanded
format' to provide for more informal meetings between G8 and a few other
emerging nations. Accordingly, after the meetings of the G8 member-nations on
the first day of the summit on July 8, the members were joined by G5
countries (comprising Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa) plus
Egypt (invited specially for the occasion by the Italian government) and by three
more countries (Australia, Indonesia, and South Korea) representing the
Major Economies Forum (MEF) on the second day, and by some more countries on
the third day, including a few African countries, taking the number of
participating countries to 39, which together represent 90% of world's economy, to
discuss such diverse topics as climate changes, food security,
non-proliferation, and counter-terrorism, besides
the current global economic crisis. Other invitees to the summit included
important international organizations such as UN, IMF, World Bank, and
WTO .
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