The joint declaration of the G7 Heads of State or Government, a one-page document adopted at the end of the Biarritz Summit on Monday 26 August, is an innovation: it was written directly by the leaders, without going through a lengthy technical preparation process before the summit.
The French President, Emmanuel Macron, who assumes the annual chair of the informal group, wanted to avoid a repeat of the diplomatic incident at the Charlevoix summit in 2018, when the American President, Donald Trump, refused to sign the final communiqué (see EUROPE 12038/15). Mr Macron therefore decided to start from "a blank sheet of paper" for a possible final communiqué and to propose a series of thematic statements (see EUROPE 12311/1).
Leaders usually discuss on the basis of a draft text prepared by the 'Sherpas', a situation that sometimes frustrates Heads of State or Government, according to a senior diplomatic source.
This time, Mr Macron wanted to build a text on the basis of the contributions of the 'Sherpas', bilateral meetings, sometimes at Ministerial level, and especially according to the exchanges held between leaders in Biarritz.
Thus, the text was written during the closing session, for more than an hour on Monday afternoon. It would be the French President himself, perhaps based on his experience as a former Sherpa, who drafted the terms of the final declaration in collaboration with his counterparts supported by their 'Sherpas' (in the 1+1 format), another source told us. "It was a moment of collective intelligence", according to the source.
This "fluid and dynamic" writing system, welcomed by several diplomatic observers, has made it possible to make some progress. On the issue of trade, the G7 commitment to reach an agreement in 2020 to simplify regulatory barriers and modernise international taxation within the OECD was added - in addition to the desire to modernise the WTO.
See EUROPE 12313 on the results of the summit.
See the G7 statement: https://bit.ly/2Pasvh9 (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)