5th G7 summit

The 5th G7 Summit was held at Tokyo, Japan between June 28 and 29, 1979. The venue for the summit meetings was the State Guesthouse in Tokyo, Japan.[2]

5th G7 summit
State Guesthouse, Akasaka Palace[1]
Host countryJapan
DatesJune 28–29, 1979
Follows4th G7 summit
Precedes6th 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)[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 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

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 5th G7 summit was the first summit for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It was also the first and only summit for Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark and Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira.

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 Joe Clark Prime Minister
France Valéry Giscard d'Estaing President
West Germany Helmut Schmidt Chancellor
Italy Giulio Andreotti Prime Minister
Japan Masayoshi Ōhira Prime Minister
United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister
United States Jimmy Carter President
European Community Roy Jenkins Commission President
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing 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.[5] Coming amidst the "second oil shock" cause by the Iranian Revolution, the summit became devoted to the problem of energy, according to historian Daniel Yergin. "It was also a very nasty one. Tempers were badly frayed." U.S. President Jimmy Carter stated that German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt "got personally abusive toward me .... He alleged that American interference in the Middle East trying to work for a peace treaty was what had cause the problems with oil all over the world."[8]

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. Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA): Summit Meetings in the Past.
  3. Saunders, Doug. "Weight of the world too heavy for G8 shoulders," 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. Reuters: "Factbox: The Group of Eight: what is it?", July 3, 2008.
  5. 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 3, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  7. MOFA: Summit (8); European Union: "EU and the G8" Archived February 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  8. Yergin, Daniel (5 April 2011). The prize : the epic quest for oil, money & power. p. 694. ISBN 978-1-4391-3483-2. OCLC 893110574.

References
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