WASHINGTON: Pressure to reform the Group of Eight club into a more representative and effective world council has never been more intense but a new generation of political leaders may be required to make it happen.
Leaders from the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia meet in St Petersburg next week amid widespread disillusionment about the legitimacy of the 30-year-old rich nations club, originally set up as an informal forum to right the wrongs of the world economy.
The ad hoc grouping, expanded to include Russia in 1998, may have adequately reflected the late 20th century, critics say, but it is hopelessly lopsided in the 21st.
Calls for G8 to be reshaped have been building since the turn of the century as economic clout has seeped towards emerging powerhouses such as China — which has just leapfrogged Britain to become the world’s 4th largest economy — and India.
“G8 cannot last much longer than 2 to 3 years in its current form and retain any semblance of effectiveness and representative legitimacy,” said Johannes Linn, director of the Wolfensohn Initiative at Washington’s Brookings Institution.
But Linn said despite heavy lobbying, the current crop of G8 leaders do not seem to have prioritized reshaping the group and new faces may be need to push real change.
“There are moves in the system on a range of global governance issues but it hasn’t congealed around expanding the G8,” said Linn, a former senior World Bank official.
“And, in the absence of serious US interest, nobody else really wants to take a lead within in the group.” What is more, a majority of the G8 leaders are seen as either “lame ducks” — whose terms in office will end in the next year or two — or face imminent elections.
Hopes some leaders were ready for a rethink were stoked by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in May. But he is not expected to remain UK premier for much more than a year.—Reuters
