Leaders from seven of the world’s wealthiest countries are meeting at this year’s G7 Summit in Germany’s Bavarian Alps on Sunday to discuss the globe’s most pressing issues. On the agenda at the June 26-28 event are Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the global economic crises exacerbated by the war, vaccine equity, and the climate emergency.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is the G7 chair this year, previously said at the Global Solutions Summit in Berlin in March that the war in Ukraine “must not lead us as the G7 to neglect our responsibility for global challenges such as the climate crisis or the pandemic.”
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What is the G7?
The G7 consists of seven of the world’s richest countries, which meet annually to typically discuss global security, economic, and climate concerns. This year, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, and U.S. President Joe Biden are expected to be in attendance.
E.U. President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel will attend this year as well, as is customary for the bloc’s leaders.
“It’s a gathering of some of the most economically and politically powerful democracies in the world…that’s happening at a time when we have the greatest authoritarian expansionist threat since Nazi Germany invaded Europe,” says Nicole Sedaca, executive vice president of Freedom House, a U.S. nonprofit that tracks democracies. “What we’ll be looking for is how much of their political and economic might will they bring to bear to really push back on on Russian aggression.”
The G7 chair can invite other nations, and the leaders of Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal, and South Africa are expected to attend.
Although Russia joined the group in 1998—and the name changed to G8—the country has been excluded since 2014 after annexing Crimea.
The G7, as it is now known, was first formed in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, which had led to a deep recession and rising inflation. France, Italy, Japan, the U.K., the U.S., and West Germany formed the initial Group of Six in 1975 to discuss the ensuing economic concerns. Canada joined the group in 1976.
Read more: What Is the G7? Here’s the History of the Conference
What’s on the agenda?
Despite Scholz’s comments that the …read more
Source:: Time – World