| 24th G8 summit | |
|---|---|
 Official logo | |
| Host country | United Kingdom |
| Dates | 15–17 May 1998 |
| Follows | 23rd G8 summit |
| Precedes | 25th G8 summit |
The 24th G8 Summit was held in Birmingham, England, United Kingdom on 15–17 May 1998. The venue for this summit meeting was the International Convention Centre.[1]
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, and Canada starting in 1976. The G8, meeting for the first time in 1997, was formed with the addition of Russia.[2] In addition, the President of the European Commission has been formally included in summits since 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 Germany's chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the initial summit of the Group of Six (G6) in 1975.[4]
- ^ Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA): Summit Meetings in the Past.
- ^ Saunders, Doug. "Weight of the world too heavy for G8 shoulders," Archived 11 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine Globe and Mail (Toronto).5 July 2008.
- ^ Reuters: "Factbox: The Group of Eight: what is it?", 3 July 2008.
- ^ Reinalda, Bob and Bertjan Verbeek. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations, p. 205.