22nd G7 summit

22nd G7 summit
Official logo
Host countryFrance
Dates27–29 June 1996
Follows21st G7 summit
Precedes23rd G8 summit
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon

The 22nd G7 Summit was held in Lyon, France, on 27–29 June 1996. The venue for this summit meeting was the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon (Musée d'art Contemporain de Lyon).[1] The locations of previous summits to have been hosted by France include: Rambouillet (1975), Versailles (1982), and Paris (1989).

The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada (since 1976),[2] and the President of the European Commission (starting officially in 1981).[3] The summits were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a mild rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was a part of the genesis of cooperation between France's president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the first Group of Six (G6) summit in 1975.[4]

A pre-summit was held in Moscow, Russia from 19 to 20 April to deal with nuclear security issues.

  1. ^ Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA): Summit Meetings in the Past.
  2. ^ Saunders, Doug. "Weight of the world too heavy for G8 shoulders," Archived 2008-10-11 at the Wayback Machine Globe and Mail (Toronto). July 5, 2008 -- n.b., the G7 becomes the G8 with the inclusion of Russia starting in 1997.
  3. ^ Reuters: "Factbox: The Group of Eight: what is it?", July 3, 2008.
  4. ^ Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations, p. 205.