India has been invited to the G7 summit: Here’s what it is all about
If you follow news closely, you would know that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently in Germany to attend the G7 or the Group of Seven Summit. This year, the venue for the summit is Schloss Elmau, a hundred-year-old retreat in a nature reserve located in the Bavarian Alps. The PM has been invited to the summit to speak about environment, energy, climate, food security, health, gender equality, counterterrorism and democracy. He will also attend bilateral talks with leaders of other participating nations, such as Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In this context, let us explore the Group of Seven and find out why India is part of this summit.
Which countries are the members of G7?
G7 stands for a group of seven leading industrialised countries of the world. Well, who are the member countries of the G7? They are, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Every year, they get together once to hold a global summit and discuss the pressing concerns of the world. Along with the member nations, representatives of the European Union (EU) and other invited countries also participate in this conference, known as G7 summit. This year, Germany has been assigned the responsibility of organising it, for the seventh time. This year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has invited Argentina, Indonesia, Senegal, South Africa and India to be the partner countries. Interestingly, Ukraine too has been invited, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will virtually attend the summit on 27th June. Distinguished international organisations such as the United Nations, World Health Organisation, World Trade Organisation, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are also part of this year’s G7 summit.
How was G7 formed?
Way back in 1975, a group of six politically and economically powerful countries clubbed together to form G6 or a Group of Six. The founding nations were Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and the USA. The question is, what necessitated this move? Well, the aim of these nations was to have an annual gathering of world leaders who would discuss global issues surrounding economy. Their first summit was held at the Rambouillet Castle in France. The topics discussed here included the first oil crisis, the collapse of the fixed exchange rates system, ongoing recession and much more. Thanks to this summit, a global economic policy was formulated and measures to tackle international economic decline were taken into consideration. The very next year, Canada was added, which is when the first G7 Summit happened in Puerto Rico. Just like G6 turned into G7, the G7 had also changed to G8 in 1998 when Russia was included. However, the eighth member was evicted in 2014, following its violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Interestingly, since 1977, European Community (now, European Union) has also been part of all annual sessions of the G7 and 1980 onwards, G7 not only discusses economic policies, but also the ones concerning foreign security and climate crisis.