G8 club under pressure to expand
David Pilling | Friday, 11 July 2008
Some of the Group of Eight leaders might have choked on their green tea when Nicolas Sarkozy this week proposed expanding the organisation to 14 or 15 members.
Not only should China and India, the world's two biggest emerging economies, be invited into the club, the French president said, but Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, an Arabic country and possibly another African nation should be thrown in for good measure.
He argued that the G8 was already changing the way it worked. Next year's meeting on an Italian island would include a full day of "outreach" talks in a G13 format. Did it not make sense to formalise what was becoming a de facto arrangement?
A French official, citing the discussions on emission cuts that dominated two of the three days, said: "How can you deal with climate change issues without talking to major economies like China and India, forgetting 2.5bn people?"
His comment could have applied to any of the topics discussed by the world leaders perched in their isolated hotel on top of an active Japanese volcano, a fitting image for the smouldering items on their agenda. High oil and food prices, threats (including of climate change) to African development, and the financial crisis still rippling round the world: all appeared beyond the ability of the eight leaders decisively to affect.
Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, described the Toyako gathering as being "effectively three overlapping summits" with Africa on day one, the G8 on the second day and the big developing carbon emitters on the third. "This summit has been unique not just for the range of issues discussed but also for the format," he said. "The world is changing fast and we must change with it."
Yet Mr Brown is one of those reluctant to expand the club formally beyond its eight members, arguing that the system of inviting other countries to attend is sufficient. The prime minister has experience of working in larger international groupings, including a 27-member European Union (EU), a format he believes is not especially conducive to effective decision-making.
Others around the table, including George W. Bush, US president, are also said to have given short shrift to Mr Sarkozy's proposal. A US official told the Financial Times: "We are looking into it but we are not sure expansion is the right way to go... There are many useful forums," he added, pointing to other groupings - such as the G20 bloc of developing nations - as suitable for dealing with issues requiring the full participation of emerging economies.
Washington hopes to address a set of global issues with China in a structured bilateral relationship under the aegis of the Strategic Economic Dialogue.
Kazuo Kodama, chief press secretary of Japan's foreign ministry, was even more cool on expansion. "The G8 is a group of countries who share basic fundamental values and that significance should not be lost," he said, with a nod to communist China. Enlargement, he said, "would dilute the quality of the discussions".
Yet the buzz around the fringes of the G8 was that the elite club's days were numbered. Bob Geldof, in Toyako to represent Data, an African advocacy group, told the FT: "The G8 probably can no longer decide anything for the world without consulting the other people who press up against that isolated room.
"They all came here this year. The Brics, the Africans, the MEM [Major Economies Meeting], because the G8 really cannot decide without the agreement of those people. It's meaningless."
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, also saw the writing on the wall. "The traditional G7/G8 probably has to expand at least to include the five main emerging market economies [India, China, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa], maybe others, to be able to represent 80 or 90 per cent of the world economy and most of the world's population."
If it did not, he said, it could well lose its capacity to deal with global issues.
Even some of those who had come to bury the G8 could not help shedding a tear. "How do we talk about these issues to the world's press if the G8 doesn't meet?" asked Mr Geldof. "For one day, quite literally, the world comes and discusses African development. Where else would we get that platform? It is extraordinary and very useful for us." (FT Syndication Service)
Not only should China and India, the world's two biggest emerging economies, be invited into the club, the French president said, but Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, an Arabic country and possibly another African nation should be thrown in for good measure.
He argued that the G8 was already changing the way it worked. Next year's meeting on an Italian island would include a full day of "outreach" talks in a G13 format. Did it not make sense to formalise what was becoming a de facto arrangement?
A French official, citing the discussions on emission cuts that dominated two of the three days, said: "How can you deal with climate change issues without talking to major economies like China and India, forgetting 2.5bn people?"
His comment could have applied to any of the topics discussed by the world leaders perched in their isolated hotel on top of an active Japanese volcano, a fitting image for the smouldering items on their agenda. High oil and food prices, threats (including of climate change) to African development, and the financial crisis still rippling round the world: all appeared beyond the ability of the eight leaders decisively to affect.
Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, described the Toyako gathering as being "effectively three overlapping summits" with Africa on day one, the G8 on the second day and the big developing carbon emitters on the third. "This summit has been unique not just for the range of issues discussed but also for the format," he said. "The world is changing fast and we must change with it."
Yet Mr Brown is one of those reluctant to expand the club formally beyond its eight members, arguing that the system of inviting other countries to attend is sufficient. The prime minister has experience of working in larger international groupings, including a 27-member European Union (EU), a format he believes is not especially conducive to effective decision-making.
Others around the table, including George W. Bush, US president, are also said to have given short shrift to Mr Sarkozy's proposal. A US official told the Financial Times: "We are looking into it but we are not sure expansion is the right way to go... There are many useful forums," he added, pointing to other groupings - such as the G20 bloc of developing nations - as suitable for dealing with issues requiring the full participation of emerging economies.
Washington hopes to address a set of global issues with China in a structured bilateral relationship under the aegis of the Strategic Economic Dialogue.
Kazuo Kodama, chief press secretary of Japan's foreign ministry, was even more cool on expansion. "The G8 is a group of countries who share basic fundamental values and that significance should not be lost," he said, with a nod to communist China. Enlargement, he said, "would dilute the quality of the discussions".
Yet the buzz around the fringes of the G8 was that the elite club's days were numbered. Bob Geldof, in Toyako to represent Data, an African advocacy group, told the FT: "The G8 probably can no longer decide anything for the world without consulting the other people who press up against that isolated room.
"They all came here this year. The Brics, the Africans, the MEM [Major Economies Meeting], because the G8 really cannot decide without the agreement of those people. It's meaningless."
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, also saw the writing on the wall. "The traditional G7/G8 probably has to expand at least to include the five main emerging market economies [India, China, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa], maybe others, to be able to represent 80 or 90 per cent of the world economy and most of the world's population."
If it did not, he said, it could well lose its capacity to deal with global issues.
Even some of those who had come to bury the G8 could not help shedding a tear. "How do we talk about these issues to the world's press if the G8 doesn't meet?" asked Mr Geldof. "For one day, quite literally, the world comes and discusses African development. Where else would we get that platform? It is extraordinary and very useful for us." (FT Syndication Service)