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A Summit of Substantial Success:
Prospects for the G7 at Schloss Elmau in 2015
John Kirton
Director, G7 Research Group
May 30, 2015
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The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of members of the G7 Research Group for the research on which this study is in part based. It draws on "A Summit of Success: Prospects for Schloss Elmau," in John Kirton and Madeline Koch, eds. (2015), G7 Germany: Schloss Elmau Summit, June 2015 (London: Newsdesk Media).
The 41st annual G7 summit, taking place at Schloss Elmau in Germany's Bavaria on June 7-8, 2015, promises to be a particularly significant event. It will be the third time the G7 leaders meet without Russia, since it was suspended in 2014. It will be the second recent G7 summit with a comprehensive agenda, embracing security, social and economic affairs and will have been prepared a full year in advance. It will be the first G7 or G8 summit to invite as guests both select African leaders and the heads of all the core multilateral organizations. It will also be the second such summit hosted by German chancellor Angela Merkel, following her G8 one at Heiligendamm in 2007. She will do so in the 25th anniversary year of German unity, which arrived on October 3, 1990.
At Elmau Merkel will be joined by her fellow summit veterans, led by Canada's Stephen Harper, then America's Barack Obama and Britain's David Cameron, recently re-elected with a majority government. The relative newcomers will be France's François Hollande, Japan's Shinzo Abe, Italy's Matteo Renzi and the new leaders of the European Union, Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker. Russia's Vladimir Putin will not attend, unless he suddenly and surprisingly proves that he will change his actions in Ukraine that led to Russia's suspension from the earlier G8 club.
At Elmau these leaders will face an exceptionally broad and demanding agenda. It begins with the political security crisis in Ukraine, the new terrorist shock from ISIS in the Middle East, and ongoing terrorist threats in Mali, Kenya and elsewhere. It includes the perennial problems of Iran's nuclear weapons program, the Middle East peace process between Israel and its neighbours, the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and North Africa, dangers from North Korea, disputes over territory in the South China Sea, the old threats from crime, corruption and drugs and the new ones from China and cyberspace.
Equally formidable will be the G7's social and sustainable development challenges. The G7 will consider how to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their 2015 deadline, launch a new round of proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and shape the United Nations summits on development finance in Addis Ababa and on climate change in Paris in December. Another focus will be energy, a subject central to climate change and the environment, the security of Ukraine and Europe, economic growth and development. The health agenda includes the deadly Ebola epidemic, neglected tropical diseases, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, dementia, antimicrobial resistance, and maternal, newborn and child health. Also important is the German host's initial priority of economic growth in Africa, including the contribution of women there.
In economics and finance, the G7 will work in tandem with the G20, halfway between the latter's last summit in Brisbane, Australia, in November 2014 and its next one in Antalya, Turkey, in November 2015. The G7 will address preventing a contagious financial crisis from Greece, Russia or elsewhere, generating global growth through sound fiscal and budgetary policy, job creation and structural change, international financial institutional reform, financial regulation and supervision, socially responsible trade, international taxation, and infrastructure investment and finance.
The G7's Elmau Summit is likely to be a substantial success. It will solidify G7 unity and leadership against the threat from Russia, terrorists in Syria, Iraq, the Middle East and Africa, and nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran. It will lead on climate change control, energy security, health, development, and Africa providing essential support for the UN summits in 2015. And it will strengthen a sluggish G7 and global economy through macroeconomic and microeconomic measures, and contain a looming financial crisis from Greece.
It will be spurred to this substantial success by the security shocks from Putin's Russia and ISIS terrorists, with the latter inspiring murders in France, Canada and elsewhere during the past year. The recent oil price and Ebola shocks will provide another jolt. As the UN Security Council (UNSC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and other UN bodies have failed to control such deadly shocks, the task will be taken up by the G7, whose members are growing in their collective capability, and even some internal equality, as most big emerging economies decline. The security shocks directly assault the unifying democratic convictions of the G7 leaders, who will be backed by substantial domestic political cohesion, above all in Germany. Merkel will be the most experienced G7 leader at Elmau, having produced a strong performance at her Heiligendamm Summit in 2007. Since then, both her country and she herself have effectively led the world on the Elmau Summit's core challenges, starting with Ukraine and climate change. The suspension of Russia for a second year will reinforce the compactness, informality and likemindedness of the G7 club, which will return to serve as a stronger hub of a global governance network, with several other countries, international organizations and civil society partners connected to the core.
Germany began its year as summit host by presenting its planned agenda on its website on June 29, 2014, and again on November 19, 2014, well before it formally assumed the chair on January 1, 2015 (Appendix A). It promised a focus on "the global economy as well as on key issues regarding foreign, security and development policy." It highlighted "the UN conference to be held in 2015 as well as the post-2015 agenda." It also specifically noted Crimea, Russia-Ukraine, marine environment protection, antibiotic resistance, neglected and poverty-related diseases, Ebola, retail and supply chain standards, women in self-employment and vocational training, the Rome G7 Energy Initiative, trade, financial market architecture, sound public finances, and well-functioning labour markets. It is a comprehensive agenda, embracing security, development and economics, and containing issues both old and new.
In designing their summit the Germans are following the recent standard format of mounting a day-and-a-half event (Appendix B-1). As guests, they have added an outreach session with several African leaders and, innovatively, the heads of six international organizations (Appendix B-2). This is partly to touch on developments in Africa and the challenges of Northern Africa, as leaders from those countries were invited to attend. As the summit approaches, there appears no possibility that Putin would be.
The Germans have taken full advantage of their early start as host. It began when G7 leaders decided in March 2014 not to attend Russia's G8 Sochi Summit scheduled for early June. They instead assembled as the G7 in the Hague and then on June 3-4 in Brussels at the headquarters of the European Union there with Germany and Britain serving as de facto co-chairs. No country members had wanted the EU to continue as the host as there was no precedent for that, so Germany as the long-scheduled host for 2015 immediately assumed the role.
For 2015 Germany have scheduled an extensive set of ministerial meetings (Appendix C-1). They are led by the foreign ministers in Lübeck in April, the energy ministers in Hamburg in mid May and the finance ministers and central bank governors in Dresden at the end of May, following their gathering in Washington at the semi-annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Germany has also planned, more innovatively, meetings for health and for science ministers in October.
The preparatory sherpa meetings began in Berlin in December, and continued in Frankfurt in March, Berlin in mid April and Elmau in late May (Appendix C-2). Germany has been bringing in experts to discuss its priority items. These were led by Ukraine and Russia, an issue especially important for Canada and a few other members. Another priority was Iraq and Syria and the self-proclaimed Islamic State, also known as ISIS (or ISIL). There have been presentations on climate change and the UN's forthcoming 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) in Paris, which was high on the agenda, the post-2015 development goals and women's empowerment. Merkel herself is very committed to the gender issue, both in terms of empowerment within G7 members, where the debate in Germany is about women on executive boards and quotas, as well as in finding where the G7 could exchange best practices, and also gender issues in Africa and the developing world. Driven by Merkel's desire for outreach, these presentations to the sherpas have come from distinguished professors, officials, representatives of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the business community, civil society groups and union representatives. There have also been direct discussions with several engagement groups (Appendix C-3). Germany is thus doing much more outreach than the United Kingdom did as host of the last standard summit in 2013.
In the year leading up to Elmau, the leaders issued two collective statements, the first on July 30, 2014, and the second on February 13, 2015. In addition, Merkel has revived a G7 hosting tradition by conducting a pre-summit tour to consult with all her colleagues in their countries about their priorities and plans for the summit (Appendix C-5). This high-level process is being enriched by additional bilateral meetings between and among G7 leaders and with outsiders.
With an extensive German menu, including several signature items, some G7 members have sought to ensure that the big items, such as Ukraine-Russia, do not get lost. Some issues have been handled on the foreign ministers' track, but others such as health have been divided between both the leaders and the ministers. More German signature items are being dealt with by the Foreign Affairs Sous Sherpas (FASS). These include marine littoral zones, such as floating islands the size of Texas in the Pacific, deep sea mining, remittances and the CONNEX initiative to provide assistance to developing countries in complex contract negotiations.
By early May, Germany had started to introduce building blocks to produce a draft communiqué.
The one major issue creeping up as the summit approaches, is migrants sailing across the Mediterranean, often arriving in Italy from Libya. This is a European issue with broad resonance, particularly for Italy, but not discussed by G7 sherpas by early May.
The summit is scheduled to open with a working dinner devoted to foreign policy, where several issues can be discussed. A month before the summit, no arrangements had been yet made for who might lead and follow up the discussion at each session. The chair will decide this, as Britain's Cameron had at Lough Erne in 2013.
The outreach gathering with the invited heads from Africa and multilateral organizations has been slated for the last session, although that might change. The six or seven African leaders invited include South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, Nigeria's President-Elect Muhammadu Buhari, Senegal's President Macky Sall, Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi and Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. They will be at the table along with the heads of the six major multilateral organizations: the UN's Ban Ki-moon, the IMF's Christine Lagarde, the World Bank's Jim Kim, the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Guy Ryder, the WTO's Roberto Azevedo, and Angel Gurría of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The choice of the African leaders reflects the common democratic values that the G7 would highlight, to which Merkel is strongly attached. It also reflects the issues to be discussed and the need to have large countries there. This session will focus on health, and follow up on Germany's signature items — women's empowerment, post-2015 development issues and Africa's role.
The summit schedule is also designed to allow time aside for bilateral meetings between the leaders.
In all, the plans for Elmau show that the full-strength G7 summit-centred global governance system is back. It is even institutionally expanding in several ways.
The G7 is also back to having a comprehensive agenda, as the Elmau Summit will address a long list of central global security, development and economic issues (Kirton 2015, Merkel 2015).
Ukraine is the first of the major security issues. On February 13, 2015, G7 leaders, in a collective statement, welcomed the Minsk implementation agreement of February 12, threatened appropriate measures against violators, again condemned the illegal annexation of Crimea and recognized the IMF's agreement in principle on the IMF Extended Fund Facility financial support package for Ukraine.
By early May Ukraine's prominence was reinforced by the prospect that Putin might make another threatening move on the summit's eve. Summit planners had been calculating he was more likely to try to split the Europeans with a partial implementation of the Minsk agreements than to take more direct action. That would cause Europeans in the south and east who were more sympathetic to Russia — notably Serbia and Hungary — to argue that progress was being made so the G7 sanctions could be relaxed a bit. But, inspired by Russia's May 9 celebrations of its victory in the Second World War, Putin might try to grab Mariupol, which would help give him a land corridor to Crimea but make Ukraine the defining issue at Elmau. Military intelligence showed he was building up his forces next to and in Ukraine to make such a move.
Within the G7 there is no appetite for returning to a G8 format. Merkel is the only G7 leader who speaks to Putin regularly — they speak each other's languages — but she is increasingly frustrated with him. She stands firm that freely respecting the Minsk agreement is the only option.
The approach to Ukraine and other issues will be guided by the G7's shared principles and values, and what the G7 can bring to global governance on this basis. Summit leaders can be expected to stress the message that their countries are likeminded, small-l liberal democracies, whose citizens believe in the rule of law.
G7 leaders are due to reaffirm their fundamental position that Russia's annexation of Crimea is illegal. They will offer a unified show of support for their sanctions on Russia, and demand that the Minsk agreement be fully respected.
Another component of their Ukrainian agenda is offering support for a $40 billion package of financial assistance for Ukraine's economically embattled government, with $15 billion coming from the IMF, whose executive board is controlled by the G7 countries. Financial contributions from other institutions and countries will be supported and pledged as well.
Direct military assistance to Ukraine by G7 members will also be discussed. It will be led by the United States and Canada, which have injected respectively 300 and 200 members of their regular ground forces into Ukraine to train Ukrainian troops there. Some U.S. forces have been training Ukrainian troops on the front lines, teaching them how to direct artillery fire at the enemy while minimizing civilian casualties and collateral damage. This raises the possibility of U.S. forces suffering casualties, as Canadian military trainers recently had in Iraq, and the possible consequences escalating, especially if U.S. and Russian military forces were to be directly engaged.
Finally, G7 leaders will continue to commit and raise the money required to render safe the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. It exploded in 1986 when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union and spread its deadly radioactive waste around the world. This G7 commitment will be a poignant reminder of the G7's faithfulness in supporting Ukraine for almost three decades and of how even accidental shocks from inside today's insecure Russia can radiate outward to harm all. In this context, the increasing references by consequential Russians to the possible use of Russia's nuclear weapons is a matter of concern.
A second major security issue is combating the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Here G7 members are, with the G7's collective endorsement, using military force, as they have done on five previous occasions starting with their attack on Iraq to liberate Kuwait from aggression and annexation in 1990–91. Since 2014 G7 members have been using force in Iraq, with the U.S. and Canada conducting air strikes over Syria and the U.S. recently sending its ground forces into Syria on raids to kill ISIS leaders.
G7 leaders will collectively endorse such efforts and perhaps pledge more, in the wake of the shocking territorial gains made by ISIS with their capture of the strategic cities of Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria in late May. They will consider how to control the foreign fighters coming from their countries to fight for the Islamic State and then seeking to return home to often continue the war in other ways. They will similarly consider how to control the ideological inspiration of ISIS and the radicalization of their youth and the acts of home-grown terrorism that result.
G7 leaders will also address and pledge more humanitarian assistance to the many suffering civilians displaced by the war in Syria, Iraq and surrounding states.
Beyond the ISIS threat, there are several other challenges of terrorism and civil war in the broader Middle East and Africa. These are arising most prominently in Yemen, Libya, Mali, Kenya, Nigeria and Afghanistan, where U.S. armed forces remain substantially engaged.
Another security challenge is shepherding the tentative deal recently struck with Iran to control its nuclear program through to its conversion into a detailed, ratified regime by the end of June.
Security in Asia is also a concern, starting with the ongoing danger of nuclear proliferation or deadly provocations from North Korea. G7 planners know that North Korea has a history of playing to the crowds and might do so again at summit time. Leaders will also address the threat to maritime security in the critical energy supply routes in the Persian Gulf and the East and South China Seas.
Other security issues could arise. Cyber security and cyber spying are not on the formal agenda but there are always opportunities for the leaders to raise other issues. Political directors and foreign ministers have noted these issues.
An important issue, bridging the political-security and development domains, is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). G7 members were divided over their acceptance of China's offer to participate as members from the start. This division was prompted by a race within Europe between Luxembourg and the United Kingdom, led by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, to see which country would be first to join. Very quickly all the G7's European members joined, while the Pacific partners of the U.S., Japan and Canada did not. G7 members have argued over whether it was more effective and influential to be inside participating in negotiating the AIIB's articles of agreement or to be exerting pressure for the AIIB to adopt high standards from the outside.
This public display of G7 disunity has prompted many phone calls among G7 members. Several leaders have suggested discussing at Elmau the broader issue of their relations with China. Doing so would acknowledge that all members have a commercial interest and want a dialogue on human rights, and would provide an opportunity to discuss the relationship between these two factors. It would also allow G7 leaders to discuss how to engage China as its role in the Pacific expands, with China making military and other sophisticated purchases from Russia.
Climate change is the pre-eminent issue in the sustainable development domain. On her pre-summit visit to Tokyo on March 7-8 Merkel highlighted climate change. She focused on the Paris conference and whether an ambitious binding climate agreement could take effect in 2020. She noted: "That is why, along with our G7 partners, we aim to prepare initiatives that demonstrate that the G7 states are willing to take on a leading role in fostering low-carbon development. We aim to demonstrate that this does not mean renouncing prosperity" (Germany 2015).
France is driving this issue on the G7 agenda, with Germany and its domestic Energiewendeprogram to transition to clean energy offering strong support. They are all pushing their G7 partners to announce their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions before the summit, as the United States, Canada and the EU have done. As host of the Paris conference, France has much at stake and will seek support at Elmau, especially as Hollande needs a success at home. He will push for more climate finance. French officials have been persistent in reminding their G7 colleagues of climate change throughout the summit preparations. By taking the offensive, they offset their defensiveness on other issues.
Canada has encouraged the G7 to see the issue from the broader perspective of a full negotiation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Both it and the U.S. want all major emitters to attend the Paris COP and commit to control their carbon as part of a new regime. The issue, including climate finance, is also important for Merkel's coalition government and for the UK, which is the only G7 country to have enacted any legislation to allocate 0.7 percent of its gross national income to official development assistance (ODA).
As of early May the G7 was still searching for a way to send a strong political signal, given that not all the major emitters will be present at Elmau. There is a strong sense of European solidarity. The communiqué text is important to the U.S., related to Congress, with regard to the legal standing of any outcome from Paris; the Americans were able to secure satisfactory language at the G20's Brisbane Summit in November 2014. Canada similarly had to take its federal-provincial-territorial issues into account. Other G7 members have similar concerns.
A focus may well be new financing mechanisms and mobilizing money for them. All G7 members are already committed to the Green Climate Fund, although it has not yet started disbursing. Canada sees the private sector as key to bringing more countries on board, as the $100 billion promised annually for the Green Climate Fund is a substantial sum.
The Paris conference is one in a series of international conferences having high expectations. At the UN's Addis Ababa conference on financing for development, the UN expects countries to come with money to put on the table. Some will push back if they are fiscally constrained, as many are. A collective decision for the G7 to move forward will thus be difficult, but individual moves are possible.
Energy is an issue integrally related to climate change, as Merkel noted in Tokyo. She stressed the need for a sustainable energy supply: "it is above all about enhancing energy efficiency and thus reducing costs" (Germany 2015).
On Africa, the Elmau agenda contains some follow-through from Lough Erne, due to British persistence, including on tax and transparency. The CONNEX initiative to offer assistance to developing countries in negotiating complex contracts in the extractive sector is not well understood so needs to be better marketed. After much technical work and discussion among the FASS, the G7 leaders will likely produce some communiqué language to give it a push.
Direct discussion of governance issues within African countries such as Zimbabwe is likely to be limited. The African leaders will be most reluctant to meddle in the internal affairs of others, and share a strong respect for elders, which the 92-year-old Robert Mugabe now is. South Africa and Nigeria also have their own tensions about who speaks for Africa.
Governance, including in Africa, will be discussed and will appear in the communiqué as will, likely, the Deauville Partnership. The biggest issue is the capitalization of the Deauville Partnership to support countries in transition in the Middle East and North Africa. The G7 is considering what kind of issues should be included and whether to bring in other partners. Some G7 members feel that the existing membership is already well established and that the G7 should focus on current accomplishments. Tunisia, which will be at the table for the outreach session, would speak of the partnership there.
On development, leaders will focus on the post-2015 development agenda, seeking to show leadership without dictating results. They are well aware of the forthcoming Addis Ababa conference and of the fact that other countries strongly dislike being seen to be dictated to by the G7. Some countries, led by Canada, have sought to group the 17 development goals being proposed by the UN process rather than adding new goals. There may be some effort to mobilize new money for development, but none of a major increase for overall ODA for the sort produced at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit.
On health, on January 27, 2015, Merkel led the G7 in mobilizing money for child immunization by replenishing the GAVI Alliance at a pledging conference in Berlin as the first official event of Germany's G7 presidency (GAVI Alliance 2015, Ward 2015). She doubled Germany's previous commitment, pledging €600 million over five years. This inspired pledges from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of $1.5 billion, the UK of $1.5 billion, the U.S. of $1 billion over four years, Norway of $800 million and Canada of $500 million (in an early pledge). China donated for the first time, with a symbolic $5 million contribution, joining all other BRICS members of Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, which had given before. Thus well before her Elmau Summit, Merkel helped raise $7.5 billion to deal with pneumonia and diarrhea, the leading cause of children's deaths, saving an estimated five million lives through an additional 300 million children vaccinated.
In her Tokyo visit, Merkel noted health as the third summit priority, asking "What lessons can the international community learn from the Ebola epidemic for instance?" (Germany 2015). By early May the summit health agenda had included Ebola as well as 17 neglected tropical diseases and how to work with the private sector and established organizations to eradicate them. One model was the good work done by some organizations on guinea worm. Maternal, newborn and child health remained a major issue for Elmau, including through its gender initiatives.
Beyond the important component of the gender dimension of maternal, newborn and child health, the leaders' gender agenda is largely economic. It focuses on women in the workplace in two major ways, one aimed at G7 countries and the other at the developing world.
For G7 countries, one component is women's entrepreneurship. Japan is likely to be highly supportive, as this is one of Abe's three arrows for economic growth. Canada will offer its domestic best practices on women's entrepreneurship indicators and activity, access to capital, mentorship programs, support for women to take leadership roles in entrepreneurship and women's entry into international trade. Germany is also interested in increasing women's membership on boards of directors and on how to integrate education on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) into the entrepreneurship discussion. Some G7 members are uncertain of the link between them.
For developing countries, women's economic empowerment is also a significant issue. It will be discussed during the session with African leaders, including the head of the African Union, which had recently identified gender as a priority. It will stress vocational training, a subject that Merkel, with her scientific background, takes a personal interest in. However, in early May, it was unclear whether Germany would produce a clear deliverable or make a general supportive statement.
As with all of Elmau's signature initiatives, the challenge will be how to incorporate them into the Addis Ababa conference and the broader post-2015 development goals. What can G7 leaders say and do at Elmau that will advance those discussions but not in a way that will provoke negative reactions? Even identifying G7 priorities could lead non-G7 countries to respond that they had their own priorities. Discussions continue among the sherpas about the relationship between the G7 summit and the three UN conferences in 2015.
The issue of migration and refugees is being discussed within Europe, and it is not clear what the G7 leaders could add. The Europeans, even with their aging populations, tend to see immigrants as an economic burden who do not integrate into local communities, while the North Americans tend to take the opposite view. Despite these uncertainties and differences, Italy's Matteo Renzi will want to raise the issue at the summit. It could be dealt with as part of the G7's African agenda, under development and health, as many of the migrants of concern come from sub-Saharan Africa.
At Elmau, as part of their outreach session with African leaders G7 leaders will likely again endorse a comprehensive approach to food and nutrition security and reaffirm their support for the New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition, as they did at their 2014 Brussels Summit. They will likely promote the role of women in agriculture and support the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests within their emphasis on transparency. They could also address food and agriculture as part of their agenda on health and nutrition, climate, biodiversity and oceans, development (where they would include it as part of their shaping of the proposed Sustainable Development Goals), humanitarian relief (including food aid for Syria and elsewhere) and trade (where agricultural protectionism hindered agreement on the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
In the economic domain there is unlikely to be any of very vigorous discussions such as those that arose on the global economy at the G7's Camp David Summit in 2012. More likely, the traditional discussions will include the prospect of concluding the bilateral TTIP and plurilateral TPP and then shift to delivering the WTO's Bali agenda.
A central concern could be the possibility of a contagious financial crisis erupting from Greece in the short term, or Russia or China in the longer term. However, although Greece will have to repay its large IMF loan on June 5 and will likely be unable to make the additional payments due that month, G7 leaders may continue to consider the issue as one best addressed as a European financial and sovereign debt issue rather than something they should act on collectively. There had been some G7 concern about how Greece positioned itself with Russia, but this abated when the Greek leader Alexis Tsipras met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and returned empty handed, suggesting that the now cash-strapped Russians had no money to spare.
On the G7 summit process itself, the key issue will be accountability. The G7 had made good progress in accountability reporting on a standard template since the Muskoka Summit in 2010. But the process has become more difficult as different countries approach accountability in different ways.
For Elmau it has been difficult to prepare accountability reports in simple, easy-to-understand language. Germany has already produced an accountability report on biodiversity in 2015, although it was a scientific document that few non-specialists could understand. The Muskoka approach was to focus on commitments and make sure the report was easily accessible to the public, while the German approach has been to include comprehensive, detailed, specialized data. The debate over the best approach is due to continue in 2016 when a comprehensive accountability report will be done.
On its eve the Elmau Summit seems poised to produce at least a substantial performance across all dimensions of G7 summit governance (Appendix D).
In its domestic political management, all G7 leaders are set to attend and arrive and stay for the full summit. The presence of six invited African leaders and heads of six invited major multilateral organizations promises to enhance G7 leaders domestic political standing, as no single guest would overshadow any of the G7 ones. This carefully constructed outreach stands in sharp contrast to the 2009 L'Aquila Summit, where the last day featured 40 leaders, including Libya's Muammar Gaddafi who was soon domestically deposed.
The presence of compliments to specific G7 members in the leaders' lead-up statements and at the ministerial meetings suggests that there could be ample compliments made by the summit itself.
In its deliberation, Elmau promises to be a significant success. In its private dimension, the standard format of 24 hours over two days, starting with a leaders-only opening dinner, allows enough time for free-wheeling, flexible, frank discussions in which the leaders are personally engaged. This is especially so as the same G7 leaders met together at two earlier G7 summits in the spring of 2014 and have been involved in the preparation of the two statements subsequently issued in their name.
In the public dimension of deliberation, in the lead-up to the summit, G7 leaders and their ministers have issued an unusually large number of statements, following their very vigorous production of such statements from the year before. Once again, the overwhelming focus is Ukraine.
On July 30, 2014, shortly after the Brussels Summit, the G7 issued the "G7 Leaders Statement on Ukraine." Its five paragraphs primarily condemned the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 and the death of the 298 innocent civilians on board. It also condemned Russia's continuing aggression and annexation, highlighted the additional coordinated sanctions G7 members had announced that week and called for a political solution based on Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko's peace plan. It ended by stating that if Russia did not de-escalate, G7 leaders remained "ready to further intensify the costs of its adverse action."
On February 13, 2015, the "G7 Leaders Statement on Ukraine" in its four paragraphs welcomed the "package of measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements" adopted on February 12. It threatened appropriate measures against violators, condemned the illegal annexation of Crimea, and welcomed the IMF's agreement in principle on an IMF Extended Fund Facility financial support package for Ukraine.
In addition, G7 ministers issued nine statements up to May 30. They also held a finance ministers meeting in Washington in April and in Dresden in late May, from which no collective statements came.
This plethora of public statements could reduce the desire of the leaders to issue a lengthy communiqué at Elmau. However, the German host has expressed no desire to limit the summit declaration to any arbitrarily set short length, unlike Australia's Tony Abbott who had promised and delivered a G20 communiqué at Brisbane only three pages long. In 2007, at her previous summit in Heiligendamm, Merkel delivered eight documents totalling almost 26,000 words.
In its principled and normative direction setting, based on the G7's core values of open democracy and human rights, Elmau also promises to be at least a substantial success. The leaders have shown a strong desire to base their work on this foundation.
In their statements leading up to Elmau, leaders and ministers repeatedly reaffirmed the G7's foundational principles of open democracy and human rights. While the July 30 leaders' statement made no reference to these values, their statement on February 13 commended Ukraine for its commitment to implement democratic reforms.
In its decision making, Elmau also seems likely to succeed in the number, breadth and ambition of its collective public, precise, future-oriented, politically binding commitments. A few such commitments were made in the leaders' lead-up statements. In the amount of money mobilized, Elmau started with the $7.5 billion raised for child vaccines in January, with Merkel leading the fundraising effort. Elmau will likely raise more to combat antimicrobial resistance and support Ukraine and a safe Chernobyl.
In the delivery of these decisions, the initial signs of success are substantial. Elmau will advance the three-year development accountability report that did not appear in 2014. In the lead-up Germany issued an accountability report on biodiversity. The Rome energy ministers meeting produced the Rome G7 Energy Initiative implementation report. In the preparatory process Canada has continued to emphasize accountability, a priority to which its prime minster is committed.
In its development of global governance, performance seemed promising too. In developing global governance outside the G7, in their statement on July 2014, G7 leaders referred four times to three institutions: the Organisation for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) in Europe (twice), the UN and the Trilateral Contact Group. In their February 2015 statement they referred twice to the IMF.
On the final and ultimate dimension of deaths delayed, performance started in January with the estimated five million lives saved through the $7.5 billion mobilized for child immunization.
The Elmau Summit will be driven to at least substantial success, particularly in the political-security and sustainable development domains by the robust state of several causes highlighted by the proven concert equality model of G7 governance (Kirton 2013). These are led by the broad set of substantial shocks that activate G7 members' vulnerability, the pervasive failure of many major multilateral organizations and other plurilateral summit institutions in response, the slight shift toward global predominance and internal equality in G7 members' relative capabilities, the strong democratic commonality of the group, and its intensified position as a compact club at the hub of a growing global governance network. The major constraint comes from the limited domestic political cohesion in the U.S. and elsewhere, offsetting its generally high level in its German host. However, a sudden shock on the summit's eve, such as renewed Russian aggression in Ukraine, a new ISIS conquest or terrorist act against G7 members or citizens or even Greek default, could still spur the Elmau summit to significant and even strong success.
The first force propelling Elmau to at least substantial success across a broad front was the set of visible robust shocks arising in the year and months before the summit, especially in war, terrorism, energy, climate change and finance. They include novel threats and the latest installments of now familiar shocks that the G7 and the G20 have successfully addressed before.
In the political-security domain, the first shock came from war in Europe, from a Russia that also bordered the U.S., Canada and Japan and that continued to occupy Japan's Northern Territories seized just after the end of the Second World War. Russia's invasion, successful conquest and de facto military occupation and control of eastern Ukraine continued. The latest shock came when Russian-supported rebels seized the strategic city of Debaltseve, in the days after the Minsk 2 ceasefire agreement had been signed. In the following weeks Russia continued to send military equipment into the region of Ukraine controlled by its forces and local allies. In the weeks before the summit, it massed major military forces on its borders with Ukraine, able easily to advance to seize Mariupol and secure a land corridor to occupied Crimea.
Within Russia, on February 28, 2015, a new, related political shock erupted, with the murder of opposition leader Boris Nemstov in Moscow. Despite denials by the Kremlin of its involvement, the murder showed the further decline of democracy and the rule of law in Russia and perhaps Putin's diminishing political control over Russia's Islamic Chechen region.
In the combination of war and terrorism, the central shock has come from ISIS. It is swiftly conquering much of Iraq and Syria, brutally murdering religious minorities and other civilians, publicly beheading G7 citizens, both western and Japanese hostages and spreading through social media the visible images that activate citizens in G7 members. In late May ISIS captured Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria, soon after Iraq forces had regained control of Tikrit. This sudden ISIS surge is a strategic setback for the West, especially as it shows the poor ability and willingness of Iraqi ground forces to fight.
The second component of the ISIS shock has come from the deaths inspired by its ideology at the hands of radicalized home-grown terrorists within G7 states. In October 2014, Canada suffered its first civilian deaths at home from terrorism since the G7 was formed in 1975. Two separate attacks within a few weeks by two radicalized individuals took the lives of two soldiers, one in front of Canada's legislature. This was followed by a far more deadly attack in Paris, France, with the murder of several journalists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and then at a kosher grocery store elsewhere in the city. In a show of solidarity, Merkel and several other G7 leaders went to Paris to commemorate the victims and Merkel condemned the attacks in her speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2015. Beyond the G7, Australia, which had sent its armed forces to combat ISIS in Iraq, suffered a deadly attack at a café in Sydney by an individual Islamic extremist incited by the ISIS ideology.
Further shocks from the combination of war and terrorism have come from the expanding civil wars in Libya and now Yemen, Boko Harem in Nigeria, Kenya and Mali.
One consequence is the visible humanitarian tragedy and assault by waves of migrants entering European countries from an unravelling Syria and from Africa and dying as they cross the Mediterranean by boat. Europe's sense of insecurity was reinforced by deadly political unrest in Macedonia inside, and the memories it awoke of the Balkan conflicts since 1992 and Kosovo in 1999. In late spring a deadly earthquake in Nepal provided another humanitarian shock.
In energy, a shock has come from the unforeseen plunge in the oil price, spurred by Saudi Arabia, from a high of $108.00 per barrel for Brent crude in June of 2014 to a low of about $55.00 as April began. Although this has helped the oil-importing economies of the U.S., Europe and Japan, and harmed that of rival Russia, it has hurt Canada and emerging economies such as Mexico and Nigeria and reduced the incentive for energy conservation and efficiency and active climate change control. The price has risen somewhat in the months leading to the summit, but remains low at about $65.50 for Brent and $60 for WTI. This volatility and uncertainty about the future trend feed a sense of vigilance and unease. The strong performance of the G7 energy ministerial in early May is one early result.
In climate change, 2014 was the warmest year on record, with the previous warmest ones coming in 14 of the previous 15 years. A severe, persistent, historic California drought has shown well-placed Americans and others that the costly consequences of climate change are real and present. Unusually bad winter weather in the U.S. was the primary cause of its negative economic growth of in the first quarter of 2015. Yet hope can be drawn from the fact that 2014 was the first year free of economic crisis in which carbon emissions had declined.
In health, the Ebola epidemic is on the wane. Its memory remains still very much alive, however, with new cases coming from U.S. citizens who were brought home for treatment in March.
In finance, an all-too-familiar shock is brewing in Greece. Its government's continuing refusal to meet previous promises to control pension and labour costs is threatening to deprive it of the new financing it needs to repay its debt due to the IMF on June 5. The conditions for further financial crises are festering in familiar form in sanctions-strapped Russia and in novel and much larger forms in China.
The second force propelling the Elmau Summit to success is the continuing failure of many major multilateral organizations to cope adequately with these shocks.
In security, the UNSC remains immobilized by Russia's veto as a member of the Permanent Five to act on the defining issue of Ukraine. The OSCE has also proven inadequate to prevent further Russian incursions or to ensure full compliance with the Minsk accords. A much more robust and potentially effective response has come from the G7-controlled North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), starting at its September 2014 summit in Wales.
Russia's veto has also paralysed the UNSC on Syria and several other regional conflicts. The UNSC was similarly paralyzed by China's veto over potential conflicts and even current threats in Asia. The UN continues to lack an organization dedicated to combatting terrorism, offering only a convention with particular provisions that G7 members cannot accept. The G20's Brisbane Summit also failed to deal with Syria and terrorism, despite taking a major step in 2013 at its St. Petersburg Summit to remove chemical weapons from Syria and despite the G20's work on terrorism at every meeting and summit since 2001.
On energy, the UN also lacks a dedicated functional organization to cope with the price shocks in oil, leaving the response largely to the G7-controlled International Energy Agency (IEA). The G20 at Brisbane had produced high-level principles for global energy governance, but nothing to give them ongoing institutional form.
The UN has no major multilateral organization dedicated to climate change. The UNFCCC secretariat in Bonn is working with G7 co-founder France to make its landmark leaders-level conference in Paris in December an adequate success. There had been some advance at the earlier Conference of the Parties in Lima in December 2014 (Kirton and Kokotsis 2015). The G20 also helped when, just before Brisbane, the U.S. and China jointly announced carbon control goals, with China for the first time pledging to control its carbon, if in the form of a projected peak in 2030 at the levels prevailing then. While the content was very weak, China's promise to control its carbon paved acceptance of a new, needed way for the inclusive regime in which all major emitters control their carbon.
On sustainable development more generally, the United Nations General Assembly is steadily moving to launch its new SDGs at its summit in September in New York. It is locking in a multilateral consensus on 17 goals containing 169 targets to be met in another 15 years, even though the eight earlier MDGs will not be met after 15 years of work. This prospective failure will led the G7 to delicately find a way to focus, shape and potentially raise resources for the SDGs to give them a better chance to succeed. The same logic and sense of responsibility apply to the UN's conference on financing for development in Addis Ababa, where countries will be asked to commit resources before they know what will be required of them from the UN-approved SDGs.
On development in its more traditional form, the World Bank is under considerable strain. It has set a bold goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030, but has not yet fulfilled the G20's promise to move to a fully merit-based process for selecting its president, which would allow a non-U.S. citizen to secure the top job. Its failure to address the growing need for global infrastructure led the BRICS at its Fortaleza Summit in July 2014 to create the New Development Bank, the G20 at its Brisbane Summit to establish the Global Infrastructure Hub in Sydney to operate alongside the pre-existing World Bank one in Washington, and China to launch the AIIB in the spring of 2015 with the G7 European members joining from the start.
On heath, the failure of the WHO was illustrated dramatically by its slow response to the Ebola epidemic, as its own evaluation has documented in detail. This failure led the G20 at its Brisbane Summit to deal directly with health for the first time and issue a statement on Ebola. Yet there remains the larger questions of other infectious diseases, health system strengthening in Africa, and the resources and governance of the WHO and its relationship with other key health actors such as the World Bank, Médecins Sans Frontières and the U.S. military itself.
On finance and the economy, the IMF's performance has been stronger. It quickly mobilized $15 billion of the $40 billion support package for Ukraine. On Greece, the IMF — as a member of the troika of institutions supervising its compliance with its commitments — has taken a hard line, insisting that the country meet the conditions before further financial assistance can flow.
Yet even with the help of the G20's Brisbane Summit, which focused on generating economic growth through microeconomic measures and trade, the desired strong, sustainable, balanced, inclusive and green growth is not forthcoming. By late May the G20 was struggling to implement its signature Brisbane Action Plan (Kirton and Kulik 2015). Turkey's Antalya Summit on November 15–16, 2015, is unlikely to fill the gap, despite identifying implementation as one of its three core themes.
In areas such as tax and structural reform, where the OECD has led, progress has been better and the G7's Elmau Summit can build on a strong base. It will act on advancing women in the workplace, where the G20's bold Brisbane promise to reduce the gender gap by 25% by 2025 needs to be supplemented by fast, targeted action by the G7.
One sign of the failure of the major multilateral organizations is the G7's response of their heads to the Elmau Summit, to improve their performance and coordination in the broadly defined development domain.
The third force propelling the Elmau Summit to success is the change in the relative capabilities of the members, with the G7 slowly shifting toward global predominance, and some signs of equalization among G7 members appearing too.
The G7's shift back toward — if not close to — its former global predominance is led by the strong rise in the value of the U.S. dollar and steady strength in the British pound, juxtaposed against the plunge in the Russian ruble, Brazilian real and South Africa rand along with relative stability in the currencies of China and India. This shift reflects and is reinforced by similar changes in real economic growth. Since the last G7 summit, the U.S., UK and Canada have produced substantial growth, while that in Japan and the eurozone revived in the spring of 2015. In sharp contrast, growth plunged in Russia, where the gross domestic product declined to −1.9% in the first quarter of 2015, and dropped in Brazil and South Africa. It slowed to a long-term low of 7% in China, leaving only India with 7.5% growth as a booming BRICS member.
Such shifts have produced more modest moves toward equalization, by both the G7 and the BRICS but not between the two. Negative growth in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2015 offered a sense of equalization within the G7, while India's rise and China's decline did so within the BRICS. The emergence of democratic India as the new BRICS growth leader increases its commonality and that of the BRICS with the G7 club.
In the balance of specialized military capabilities among countries, those of the U.S. and the G7 remain globally predominant, with a substantial lead over the BRICS, despite the rapid rise in those of Russia and China from a low base. Moreover, the armed forces of the G7 countries have steadily conducted serious sustained military combat operations in a continuous and expanding form since 2001, while the BRICS can boast of only Russia's small-scale, semi-covert operations in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine since 2014.
In the balance of specialized financial capabilities, G7 predominance remains intact. G7 members have a monopoly in the currencies included in the IMF's basket of special drawing rights. They also have an overwhelming majority of the currencies used in international transactions and the location of the world's financial centres, with all the expertise and control contained within.
In the global balance of soft power, the G7 has retained its commanding lead. The annual BBC World Survey of global public opinion shows that in the net attractiveness of systemically significant states, almost all of the G7 members stand at the top, while the BRICS members all stand below, with the only exception being Brazil, ranked just above the U.S. (Appendix E).
In the balance of international institutional allies, the G7 is reinforced by NATO, the EU and the IEA and many more partial affiliates across the Atlantic and Pacific. In sharp contrast, Russia has only the meagre Eurasian Economic Area, and the much looser BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
The fourth force propelling the Elmau Summit to success is the strong common democratic convictions and characteristics of the G7 members, and the strengthening ones of most othe six African states they have invited to join them.
Within the G7, the complete democratic character of the members remains intact, as the latest Freedom House and Polity IV reports confirm. Those within the additional EU members remain strong as well, despite the concerns of some about developments in Hungary. The suspension of Russia has strengthened this democratic unity, which will likely be reinforced by the leaders' emphasis at Elmau on the common democratic values that they share. It will likely be furthered by the specific content of the central shocks. The aggression and annexation in Europe's Ukraine have reawakened memories of the Second World War. The murder of Jews in Paris by Islamic terrorists have added those of the Holocaust; the brutality of ISIS adds a more multidimensional common cause.
Outside the G7, democratic commonality is extended by the democratic character of the six invited African leaders, all chosen on this basis. Their credentials are strengthened by the recent election in Nigeria. Elsewhere democratic values seem to spread, in Myanmar and, prospectively, in long-closed Cuba too.
The fifth force propelling the Elmau Summit's success is the solid domestic political cohesion that the G7 leaders bring to back their ability to adjust and agree at the summit and add to their ability to put their promises into action back home.
In host Germany, with a traditional coalition government Merkel has firm control of her legislature strong public approval ratings (despite a temporary drop over cyber spying in May), an election two years away, the sensitivity of a former citizen of Soviet-controlled East Germany, the climate change competence of a former environment minister and the experience of having attended nine annual G7/8 summits (starting with Putin's in 2006) and of having previously hosted one (at Heiligendamm in 2007). Not since the high achieving Gleneagles Summit hosted by Tony Blair in 2005 and Berlusconi's L'Aquila in 2009 has a G7/8 summit been hosted by a leader for a second time. The other occasions, in 2002 and 2003, produced a high performance on the African agenda.
In the most powerful U.S., Obama is highly experienced after his six G7 summits, including the one he hosted at Camp David in 2012. However, he is a lame duck president who lacks control of both chambers of Congress. This constrains the adjustments he can make abroad and accordingly achieve at homenotably on climate change. His public approval is modest, just as the intense campaign for the U.S. presidential elections in 2016 is about to begin. His struggle in late May to secure the Trade Promotion Authority enabling him to proceed with the TTP and TTIP show how circumscribed, if still manageable, his political position remains.
In Japan, Abe is in firm control of his legislature, and recently won a convincing coalition majority in the election he had called. Yet he brings only a few years of G7 summit experience.
In the UK, Cameron surprisingly won a convincing majority government in the general election in early May. This plus his five years of G7 summit experience put him in a strong position. But it is overshadowed by the difficulties he faces from a Scotland that had overwhelming elected representatives of a separatist party and his electoral promise to hold a referendum on a new deal for the UK within the EU by 2017.
In France, Hollande's party controls the National Assembly. Yet he stands at historic lows in the polls, despite a short-lived surge after the Charlie Hebdo murders. At the end of March, the opposition party led by former president Nicolas Sarkozy swept two thirds of all departments in regional elections.
In Italy, Renzi presides over a complex coalition government that is struggling to secure his political and economic reforms. He has only been to one earlier summit, the suddenly prepared Brussels one in 2014.
In Canada, Harper is backed by the majority government he won in May 2011. In public approval and party popularity he is tied with the opposition Liberal Party and suddenly the New Democratic Party in the lead-up to a general election in October. He is a veteran of G7 summitry, having attended every one that Merkel has. He hosted his own in Muskoka in 2010, with its signature success on maternal, newborn and child health.
In the EU, both the head of the commission, Jean-Claude Juncker from Luxembourg, and the president, Donald Tusk from Poland, will attend their first G7 summit at Elmau.
The sixth force driving success at Elmau is the growing character of the G7 as a compact club that the leaders' cherish as their own, at the hub of an expanding network of global governance for the world. This was evident in their decision in 2014 to keep meeting at seven without Putin, and doing so two times, very quickly at the Hague and then in Brussels. At Elmau almost all the same leaders will meet without Russia for the third time in just over a year.
Elmau will also expand the G7's position as a hub of a global governance network. Among its six African participants, a durably democratic multi-racial South Africa will now replace a recidivist Russia in directly connecting the G7 summit to the BRICS and to the democratic India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum as well. The six African invitees will give the G7 an inclusive African focus, much like the BRICS when South Africa hosted its summit at Durban in 2013. The presence of Nigeria in particular will strengthen the G7's ability to deal democratically with terrorism, energy, growth and development on a broad scale. And the presence of the heads of the six major multilateral organizations, matching the outreach of recent G20 summits, will extend the G7-centred network of global governance, starting with development. It will also make the G7 and G20 summits work together more closely, in a novel way (Larionova and Kirton 2015).
Propelled by these forces, the G7's Elmau Summit will be at least a substantial success and perhaps even a significant or strong success, should new shocks erupt on the summit's eve (Kirton 2015) (Appendix F). Such success will start with restraining — in the hope of eventually reversing — Russia's military expansion in Europe in Ukraine, restoring Russia's embrace of democratic reform, and ultimately having Russia return Crimea to Ukraine so that Russia can return to the G8. G7 leaders will strongly support the current fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia, while mobilizing the major financial support that a struggling Ukraine needs as it confronts the military threat in its east and continues its first serious economic and political reform. They will help Ukraine reduce its still pervasive corruption and foster the competitive market economy that all can trust. G7 leaders will strengthen energy security by reinforcing the work that their energy ministers launched, to reduce Gazprom's grip on Ukraine and Europe as a whole. As the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion approaches in 2016, they will keep raising the money needed to make the reactors there fully safe. They could also address directly providing military training, equipment and other assistance to Ukraine, following the lead of the U.S. and Canada.
In countering terrorism in Syria, Iraq, the broader Middle East and Africa, and prospective nuclear proliferation in Iran, G7 leaders will first strengthen their forceful response to the brutal behaviour and ideological inspiration of ISIL and its soul mates that control substantial parts of Syria and Iraq. They will seek to reverse its deadly spread into Yemen, Libya, Mali, Kenya, Nigeria, France and a previously safe Canada during the past year. They will offer cautious support and continued vigilance for the tentative deal recently struck with Iran to control its nuclear program, and help covert that deal into a detailed, ratified regime soon after the summit ends. Led by Japan they will address the nuclear proliferation, prospective deadly attacks or other provocations from North Korea. They will also counter the threat to maritime security in the critical energy supply routes in the Persian Gulf and the East and South China Seas. They will unite on the governance principles needed at the new AIIB, an issue that raises the broader question of how each G7 member sees the trade-off between a country's commercial interests and its social responsibilities including respect for human rights.
On sustainable development, the G7 leaders will support the successful completion of the MDGs due to be met by the end of 2015 and discretely shape and spur a new generation for the next 15 years. They will seek to make sure that the looming UN's summits on development finance, sustainable development goals and climate change succeed. For the climate change conference in Paris in December, the G7 will seek to shape a new approach, in which all the world's major carbon-polluting powers agree to control their own greenhouse gas emissions, while all individual G7 members lead in the most effective way, including through providing ample public and private climate finance.
In health, G7 leaders will help end the current Ebola epidemic in Africa, act on the lessons learned, strengthen healthcare systems to prevent and control similar outbreaks and neglected diseases of the poor. They will also support ongoing G7 and UN priorities such as maternal, newborn and child health and vaccination, and contribute to new priorities such as fighting antimicrobial resistance and treating dementia. They will address humanitarian emergencies, in Syria and probably across the Mediterranean beyond. They will further the German host's long-standing priority of enhancing Africa's economic growth, development, women's education, security, good governance and democracy, embracing Africa as a growing global partner taking full responsibility for its future path.
On the economy and finance, G7 leaders will seek to spur the still struggling economic recovery into the sustained take-off stage in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom and ignite it in Europe and Japan. They will promise to carefully manage its members' unprecedentedly expansive monetary policies amid the prospective rise in U.S. interest rates later in 2015. They will foster freer trade, by endorsing the rapid conclusion of the U.S.-Europe TTIP and the 12-member TPP across the Pacific embracing the U.S., Japan and Canada. They will, if necessary, act to ensure that an indebted Greece, Russia or fragile Chinese financial system do not spark another global financial crisis.
As a personal priority of G7 host Angela Merkel, the G7 leaders will enhance women's empowerment, both in their workforces at home and in vocational training in the developing world. They will reinforce the larger G20's work halfway between its last summit in Brisbane, Australia, in November 2014 and its next one in Antalya, Turkey, in November 2015, looking forward to Hangzhou, China, in the autumn of 2016. The two summit systems will work together on generating global growth through sound fiscal policy, job creation, structural change, reform of the international financial institutions, financial regulation and supervision for stability and inclusion, fair international taxation, and infrastructure investment and finance.
GAVI Alliance (2015), "Half a Billion Children Vaccinated and Seven Million Lives Saved Thanks to GAVI Partners," Press release January 23. https://www.gavi.org/Library/News/Press-releases/2015/Half-a-billion-children-vaccinated-and-seven-million-lives-saved-thanks-to-Gavi-partners.
Germany (2015), Angela Merkel in Japan: Partners in shouldering global responsibility," March 10. https://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/EN/Reiseberichte/2015/2015-03-09-merkel-japan_en.html.
Kirton, John (2013), G20 Governance for a Globalized World (Farnham: Ashgate).
Kirton, John (2015), "A Summit of Success: Prospects for Schloss Elmau," in John Kirton and Madeline Koch, eds., G7 Germany: The Schloss Elmau Summit (London: Newsdesk Media), pp. 32-33. https://www.g8.utoronto.ca/newsdesk/elmau.
Kirton, John and Julia Kulik (2015), "Advancing Accountability for Achievement: Improving Implementation of the G20's Growth Agenda," G20 Monitor 16, March. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/investment-inclusiveness-implementation-and-health-governance.
Larionova, Marina and John Kirton, eds. (2015) The G8-G20 Relationship in Global Governance (Farnham: Ashgate).
Merkel, Angela (2015), "40 Years of G7 Meetings: Commitment for Growth and Prosperity, Peace and Freedom," in John Kirton and Madeline Koch, eds., G7 Germany: The Schloss Elmau Summit (London: Newsdesk Media), pp. 10-15. https://www.g8.utoronto.ca/newsdesk/elmau.
Ward, Andrew (2015), "Gates Leads Donors in $7.5bn Child Vaccines Pledge," Financial Times January 28, 2015, p. 4.
1. German G7 Presidency: Key Topics for the Summit Announced, November 19, 2014, German government website
2. German Cabinet Adopts Programme for German G7 Presidency, November 19, 2014. German government website
3. EFE News Service, January 6, 2015
4. Kyodo News, January 15, 2015
5. Merkel (2015), Speech by Chancellor Merkel at the Annual Meeting 2015 of the World Economic Forum on January 22, 2015."
6. Germany (2015), "Angela Merkel in Japan: Partners in shouldering global responsibility," March 10.
Day One: June 7
Day Two: June 8
1. Berlin, early December 2014
2. Frankfurt, March
3. Berlin, mid-April
4. Elmau, mid-May
Scientific community
Business
Trade unions
Non-governmental organizations
Youth
Source: German Cabinet Adopts Programme for German G7 Presidency, November 19, 2014. German government website
Summit |
Grade[a] | Domestic Political Management[b] | Deliberation[c] | Direction Setting[d] | Decision Making[e] | Delivery[f] | Development of Global Governance[g] | Participation[h] | |||||
| # compliments | Spread | # days | # documents | # words | # refs to values | # commitments | Compliance | # bodies established: ministerial/official | # members | # guests | |||
| 1975 | A− | 2 | 29% | 3 | 1 | 1,129 | 5 | 14 | 0.57 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0/0 |
| 1976 | D | 0 | 0% | 2 | 1 | 1,624 | 0 | 7 | 0.09 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0/0 |
| 1977 | B− | 1 | 13% | 2 | 6 | 2,669 | 0 | 29 | 0.08 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1978 | A | 1 | 13% | 2 | 2 | 2,999 | 0 | 35 | 0.36 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1979 | B+ | 0 | 0% | 2 | 2 | 2,102 | 0 | 34 | 0.82 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1980 | C+ | 0 | 0% | 2 | 5 | 3,996 | 3 | 55 | 0.08 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1981 | C | 1 | 13% | 2 | 3 | 3,165 | 0 | 40 | 0.27 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1982 | C | 0 | 0% | 3 | 2 | 1,796 | 0 | 23 | 0.84 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 0/0 |
| 1983 | B | 0 | 0% | 3 | 2 | 2,156 | 7 | 38 | −0.11 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1984 | C− | 1 | 13% | 3 | 5 | 3,261 | 0 | 31 | 0.49 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1985 | E | 4 | 50% | 3 | 2 | 3,127 | 1 | 24 | 0.01 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1986 | B+ | 3 | 25% | 3 | 4 | 3,582 | 1 | 39 | 0.58 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 0/0 |
| 1987 | D | 2 | 13% | 3 | 7 | 5,064 | 0 | 53 | 0.93 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 0/0 |
| 1988 | C− | 3 | 25% | 3 | 3 | 4,872 | 0 | 27 | −0.48 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1989 | B+ | 3 | 38% | 3 | 11 | 7,125 | 1 | 61 | 0.08 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1990 | D | 3 | 38% | 3 | 3 | 7,601 | 10 | 78 | −0.14 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1991 | B− | 1 | 13% | 3 | 3 | 8,099 | 8 | 53 | 0.00 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 1/0 |
| 1992 | D | 1 | 13% | 3 | 4 | 7,528 | 5 | 41 | 0.64 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 0/0 |
| 1993 | C+ | 0 | 0% | 3 | 2 | 3,398 | 2 | 29 | 0.75 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 1/0 |
| 1994 | C | 1 | 13% | 3 | 2 | 4,123 | 5 | 53 | 1.00 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 1/0 |
| 1995 | B+ | 3 | 25% | 3 | 3 | 7,250 | 0 | 78 | 1.00 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 1/0 |
| 1996 | B | 1 | 13% | 3 | 5 | 15,289 | 6 | 128 | 0.41 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 1/4 |
| 1997 | C− | 16 | 88% | 3 | 4 | 12,994 | 6 | 145 | 0.13 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 1/0 |
| 1998 | B+ | 0 | 0% | 3 | 4 | 6,092 | 5 | 73 | 0.32 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0/0 |
| 1999 | B+ | 4 | 22% | 3 | 4 | 10,019 | 4 | 46 | 0.38 | 1 | 5 | 9 | 0/0 |
| 2000 | B | 1 | 11% | 3 | 5 | 13,596 | 6 | 105 | 0.81 | 0 | 4 | 9 | 4/3 |
| 2001 | B | 1 | 11% | 3 | 7 | 6,214 | 3 | 58 | 0.55 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 0 |
| 2002 | B+ | 0 | 0% | 2 | 18 | 11,959 | 10 | 187 | 0.35 | 1 | 8 | 10 | 0 |
| 2003 | C | 0 | 0% | 3 | 14 | 16,889 | 17 | 206 | 0.66 | 0 | 5 | 10 | 12/5 |
| 2004 | C+ | 0 | 0% | 3 | 16 | 38,517 | 11 | 245 | 0.54 | 0 | 15 | 10 | 12/0 |
| 2005 | A− | 8 | 67% | 3 | 16 | 22,286 | 29 | 212 | 0.65 | 0 | 5 | 9 | 11/6 |
| 2006 | N/A | 6 | 44% | 3 | 15 | 30,695 | 256 | 317 | 0.47 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 5/9 |
| 2007 | N/A | 12 | 100% | 3 | 8 | 25,857 | 86 | 329 | 0.51 | 0 | 4 | 9 | 9/9 |
| 2008 | B+ | 8 | 78% | 3 | 6 | 16,842 | 33 | 296 | 0.48 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 15/6 |
| 2009 | B | 13 | 67% | 3 | 10 | 31,167 | 62 | 254 | 0.53 | 2 | 9 | 10 | 28/10 |
| 2010 | C | 10 | 89% | 2 | 2 | 7,161 | 32 | 44 | 0.46 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 9/0 |
| 2011 | B+ | 14 | 67% | 2 | 5 | 19,071 | 172 | 196 | 0.54 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 7/4 |
| 2012 | B+ | 7 | 67% | 2 | 2 | 3,640 | 42 | 81 | 0.60 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 4/1 |
| 2013 | N/A | 7 | 44% | 2 | 4 | 13,494 | 71 | 214 | N/A | 0 | 0 | 10 | 6/1 |
2014 |
N/A | 6 | 44% | 2 | 1 | 5,106 | 42 | 148 | N/A | 1 | 0 | 9 | 0 |
Total |
N/A | 150 | N/A | 108 | 219 | 393,554 | 941 | 4126 | 16.777 | 17 | 95 | 348 | 128 |
Average |
N/A | 3.75 | 29% | 2.7 | 5.48 | 9,839 | 23.53 | 103.15 | 0.43 | 0.43 | 2.38 | 8.70 | 3.20 |
Average Cycle 1 |
B− | 0.71 | 10% | 2.14 | 2.86 | 2,526 | 1.14 | 30.57 | 0.32 | 0.29 | 0.71 | 7.57 | 0.00 |
Average Cycle 2 |
C− | 1.86 | 18% | 3.0 | 3.57 | 3,408 | 1.29 | 33.57 | 0.32 | 0.29 | 1.14 | 8.43 | 0.00 |
Average Cycle 3 |
C+ | 1.71 | 20% | 3.0 | 4.00 | 6,446 | 4.43 | 56.14 | 0.48 | 0.57 | 1.29 | 8.14 | 0.57 |
Average Cycle 4 |
B | 3.29 | 21% | 2.86 | 6.71 | 10,880 | 5.71 | 106.00 | 0.42 | 0.57 | 3.57 | 9.00 | 0.86 |
Average Cycle 5 |
B− | 7.13 | 56% | 2.88 | 10.88 | 23,677 | 65.75 | 237.88 | 0.54 | 0.38 | 5.88 | 9.63 | 12.63 |
Notes: N/A = not available. Only documents issued at a summit in the leaders' name are included.
a Grades up to and including 2005 are given by Nicholas Bayne. Grades after 2006 are given by John Kirton and the G8 Research Group.
b Domestic Political Management: compliments are references to G7/8 members in summit documents; spread is the percentage of members complimented.
c Deliberation refers to the duration of the summit and the documents collectively released in the leaders' name at the summit.
d Direction Setting: number of references to the G7/8's core values of democracy, social advance and individual liberty.
e Decision Making: number of commitments as identified by the G7 Research Group from the statements issued at the summit.
f Delivery: scores are measured on a scale from −1 (no compliance) to +1 (full compliance, or fulfilment of goal set out in commitment). Figures are cumulative scores based on compliance reports.
g Development of Global Governance: number of G7/8 institutions created at the ministerial and official levels at or by the summit or during the hosting year, at least in the form of having one meeting take place.
h Participation: number of member leaders in attendance, including the European Union and European Commission. Guests: non-G7/8 members/heads of international organizations.
Country |
Rank Range | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | |||||
| Rank | Score | Rank | Score | Rank | Score | Rank | Score | Rank | Score | ||
| Canada | 2-3 | 2 | 45 | 3 | 45 | 3 | 39 | 2 | 42 | 2 | 42 |
| Germany | 1-2 | 1 | 37 | 1 | 47 | 2 | 40 | 1 | 50 | 1 | 42 |
| European Union | 3-7 | 3 | 35 | 4 | 39 | 7 | 23 | 6 | 20 | 6 | 20 |
| Japan | 1-5 | 4 | 32 | 5 | 37 | 1 | 37 | 5 | 19 | 5 | 19 |
| United Kingdom | 2-5 | 5 | 32 | 2 | 41 | 4 | 31 | 3 | 35 | 3 | 35 |
| France | 4-6 | 6 | 30 | 6 | 33 | 6 | 26 | 4 | 28 | 4 | 28 |
| Brazil | 7-9 | 7 | 18 | 7 | 29 | 9 | 27 | 7 | 19 | 7 | 19 |
| United States | 8 | 8 | 12 | 8 | 18 | 8 | 14 | 8 | 3 | 8 | 3 |
| South Africa | 9-11 | 9 | 7 | 10 | 15 | 11 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 8 |
| India | 10-12 | 10 | 5 | 11 | 13 | 10 | 13 | 12 | 2 | 12 | 2 |
| China | 5-11 | 11 | 3 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 19 | 9 | 0 | 9 | 0 |
| Korea | 11-12 | 12 | 2 | 12 | 4 | 12 | 10 | 11 | 4 | 11 | 4 |
| Russia | 13 | 13 | −7 | 13 | −4 | 13 | −5 | 13 | −14 | 13 | −14 |
| Israel | 14 | 14 | −31 | 14 | −28 | 14 | −29 | 14 | −26 | 14 | −26 |
| North Korea | 15-16 | 15 | −31 | 16 | −39 | 15 | −31 | 15 | −39 | 15 | −39 |
| Pakistan | 15-16 | 16 | −35 | 15 | −39 | 16 | −35 | 16 | −42 | 16 | −42 |
| Iran | 17 | 17 | −41 | 17 | −43 | 17 | −39 | 17 | −44 | 17 | −44 |
Compiled by Julia Kulik, April 30, 2015.
| A+ | Striking, standhout, historic, extremely strong |
| A | Very strong |
| A− | Strong |
| B+ | Significant |
| B | Substantial |
| B− | Solid |
| C | Small |
| D | Very small |
| F | Failure |
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