Saptarshi Nag

The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and the European Union (EU) as a “non-enumerated member”. It is organized around lofty values of socio-economic and cultural pluralism, liberal democracy, and representative governance. G7 members are major IMF advanced economies.

The concept of a forum for the capitalist world’s major industrialized countries emerged before the 1973 oil crisis. On 25 March 1973, the United States secretary of the treasury, George Shultz, convened an informal gathering of finance ministers from West Germany (Helmut Schmidt), France (Valéry Giscard d’Estaing), and the United Kingdom (Anthony Barber) before an upcoming meeting in Washington, DC. The informal gathering of senior financial officials from the United States, United Kingdom, West Germany, Japan, and France became known as the “Group of Five”.

At the initiative of Giscard d’Estaing and his German counterpart, Helmut Schmidt, France hosted a three-day summit in November 1975, inviting the Group of Five plus Italy, forming the “Group of Six” (G6). Taking place at the Château de Rambouillet( even though the place is known for sheep rearing, cunning foxes incidentally met to promote their aggrandizement), the meeting focused on several major economic issues, including the oil crisis, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, and the ongoing global recession.

In 1976, Canada became the 7^th member of the forum making it G-7. In 1981, EU became a ‘Non-Enumerated Member’ of the forum. In 1998, Russia became the 8^th member thus making it G-8, a forum of the world’s strongest economies to discuss about the global challenges and maintaining a world equilibrium in terms of wealth, politics and other issues like climate, peace and regional development.

This year the 51^st G-7 summit was held in Kananaskis of the Alberta province of Canada from 16^th-17^th June with Mark Carney, the Economist PM of Canada as the Chairperson. India as has been the recent trend was one of the regular invitee members. Australia, Brazil, South Korea, South Afrika, Ukraine and Mexico were the other invitees. NATO, the UN and the World Bank also participated. Notably, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and UAE did not attend the summit even after being invited. Does this send any message to the West?

For Mark Carney, it has been a mammoth task to chair the summit. Earlier, in 2018 Donald Trump had ridiculed Canada as the ‘51^st State of the USA’ and chided the then Canadian PM Justin Trudeau as ‘Dishonest and Weak’. The tariff war started by Trump and critical international issues like Russia-Ukraine conflict, Iran-Israel war or the Israel-Palestine conflict made the situation even more precarious.

Unfortunately, right from the onset, the forum did not hesitate to manifest its partisan feelings towards its favoured nations. While the forum was vociferous for ceasefire at the Gaza strip, it unequivocally supported Isarel in its violent pursuits against Iran.  US President Trump left the summit early leaving room for the onlookers to surmise whether another ‘credit claim’ like what he had claimed for India-Pakistan crisis following the heinous Pahalgam terror attack was on the cards.  

Routine issues like Global economy and Trade, Climate Change, a call for a Global South (presumably to counter China), Geopolitical issues, Digital governance, Quantum and AI were discussed. Critically though, no pathbreaking resolution was adapted. Apart from showing its biasness towards its favoured nations and displaying opulence and wealth, the member countries did not take any unforeseen step to sincerely address the issues destabilizing world peace at the very moment. Rather than rebuking Pakistan for its continuous terror trials in India, the forum strangely asked India and Pakistan to practise restraint even though the Pahalgam attack was unanimously criticized.

For India, it was a wonderful opportunity to corner its hostile neighbour nation Pakistan and to bring its soured relation with Canada back on track. This was the first time PM Modi met his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney and this brought back the memories of the initiatives taken by Modi and the then Canada PM Stephen Harper to engage in a strategic partnership a decade back. Since then, the two countries saw the downward spiralling of their bilateral relation due to pro-Khalsitani stand of Canada and continued unabashed attack on India’s sovereignty verbally or indirectly. There were hopes that the two nations may soon resume the Early Progress Trade Agreement and talks over food security, minerals, AI, Green energy may restart soon. However, the Canadian PM has not shown any signs of taking a strict stance against Khalistani terrorism hatched on their soil. Even after PM Modi’s sincere efforts to awaken the world to the horrors inflicted to India by Pakistan over the years, the world media was curious to know what was the ‘secret talk’ between Italian PM Meloni and the French President Emmanuel Macron.

After Trump’s early exit, the G-7 leaders failed to reach substantial joint-agreements making it clear that the world politics without the participation of behemoths like China and Russia or in the absence the US Supremo cannot thrive on its own. Trump, however ambitious he may have sounded, did not leave a chance to invoke ambiguity while he confessed that ‘Removing Russia in 2014 was a mistake’ or ‘Inclusion of China in the forum is on the cards’. The world order remains the same even after G-7 summit. Israel continues to be a ‘destiny’s favoured child’ after the summit. Global hunger index does not rise by even minuscule decimals after the summit. Global peace is still an elusive dream. So, what basically is the significance of such summit? A food for thought.