Brussels, 21/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - The world economic crisis has breathed fresh life into the G20 by raising it to the level of the heads of state and government, but it is precisely the prospect of these enlarged meetings which makes it desirable to maintain a kind of G8 group that is more homogenous and cohesive. Such was the view expressed by Pietro Calamia, the former Italian permanent representative with the European Communities and the OECD, in his contribution to the latest issue of Affari Esteri entitled “The G8, new international balance and Europe”. In response to the “unconditional” supporters of immediate G8 enlargement, Ambassador Calamia replies that such enlargement should be carried out gradually, noting that the G20 “is all very well” for overcoming the world economic crisis but that one can question its worth when it comes to facing up to other international crises, from the Middle East to Afghanistan, North Korea to Iran, and Iraq to Pakistan. He points out that this is all the truer as the “summit is the result of the necessity to use a more restricted forum to try and make international organisations and institutions work better” as the latter need to be reformed.
Having attended the first three summits of this kind - he was “note-taker” in Porto Rico and London, then “Sherpa” in Naples, in 1994 - Pietro Calamia adds his own personal view to the reflection on how this kind of meeting should develop. In his view, a return to the origins of the summit may contribute to a better definition of the future stages of its development. Ambassador Calamia thus recalls that the summit is of a “European, or rather Community, mould”. He goes on to comment that the almost simultaneous appearance of regular meetings at this level - the European Council in 1974 and the Summit of Six (then of Seven) in 1975 - is “directly linked to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's progress from being a member of the French government to the president of the French Republic in 1974”. As finance minister, Giscard had been a key supporter of the main Community gatherings between the end of the sixties and the early seventies, Pietro Calamia notes, underlining the extent to which Giscard d'Estaing was “at ease” when chairing meetings with his peers. Until 1974, Mr Calamia goes on to say, the heads of state and government “were essentially excluded from the heart of Community debate” (Ed: before the creation of the European Council, the European summits were of an exceptional and sporadic nature).
In the 35 years of the summit's history, it has gone through “more or less vigorous” phases depending on the problems and personalities of its protagonists, Ambassador Calamia acknowledges, nonetheless wishing to disprove those for whom this kind of meeting is a sort of pointless “high mass”. No, he says, contrary to what most observers imagine and despite the media following of the event and the number of participants, the summit has developed “towards a form of direct encounters between heads of state and government, attended by just one person, the Sherpa”. (M.G./transl.jl)