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Prospects for the 2011 G8 Deauville Summit
John Kirton
Director, G8 Research Group
May 22, 2011
The summit taking place at Deauville, France, on 26-27 May 2011 promises to be an exceptionally significant event. Seldom before has a single G8 summit confronted such a broad range of tightly interconnected burning crises — the war to liberate Libya, bringing democracy to North Africa and the Middle East, coping with Japan’s natural and nuclear disasters, and preventing new fiscal and financial crises from Europe or the United States from snuffing out the global economic recovery now gathering force. The Deauville Summit must also deal with the formidable challenges on its built-in agenda, notably terrorism, nuclear proliferation, piracy, drugs, transnational crime, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a new partnership with Africa for development, health, education and good governance. Above all, the summit will also take up the new initiatives added by its French chair — the opportunities offered by the new cyber technologies and innovation for green growth.
Now, as much as ever, the world needs a G8 summit still devoted to globally promoting the values of “open democracy, individual liberty and social advance”, as the group proclaimed as its defining mission at its very first gathering in France in 1975. The prospects are that it will fulfil this mission and meet today’s broader challenges when it assembles for its 37th summit, in France once again. Alone among international institutions the G8 offers the smart, synergistic solutions that come from a comprehensive agenda embracing democracy, security, development and the economy, and anything else its likeminded leaders know the world needs addressed.
With an energetic, ambitious French host eager to lead, with a modest, multilateralist America ready to follow and with all other members committed to come together to confront the current crises, the Deauville Summit is due to deliver some of the big, bold, broad advances that the world badly needs.
Further momentum came from the solid performance of the G8 in complying with its priority commitments from its 2010 summit. The G8 Research Group’s preliminary final compliance report, covering the period from June 26, 2010 to April 25, 2011 showed overall G8 compliance at +.46, on a scale from +1.00 to -1.00. This score was only slightly lower than the confirmed final compliance score of +.53 for 2009-2010 and +.48 for 2008-2009. For 2010-2011, the compliance was led by last year’s host Canada at +.61, the U.S at +.56, the UK and Germany at +.50, France and the EU at +.44, Japan at +.28 and Italy at +.17.
By issue area, compliance was led by security subjects: Afghanistan at +1.00; non-proliferation, civilian security and terrorist security at +.89 each; terrorist capacity building and natural disasters at +.78 each; terrorist cooperation at +.67. Then came the Kimberley Process at +.56, official development assistance and nuclear safety at +.67, and trade, climate emissions reductions, and HIV-AIDS at +.22 each. Food-agriculture investment and neglected tropical diseases had +.44. The L’Aquila Food Security Initiative was 0. The Copenhagen Accord was -.22. Health care funding was -.56. It was the last three areas that required the deficit-ridden government to mobilize massive new money where compliance was least.
Deauville’s defining challenge will be to realize the vision set by the G8 summit in 2004 — bringing democracy, and the human development that flows from it, to the Broader Middle East and North Africa, the one global region most left out by the transformation from the victory in the Cold War. With Nicolas Sarkozy’s France, David Cameron’s United Kingdom and Stephen Harper’s Canada leading the effort to protect innocent lives in Libya, with all other G8 members providing essential support in different ways and with the Arab League and the United Nations endorsing the mission, the G8 will define a future for a Libya free from the deadly grip of the Gadhafi family, and a plan to provide economic support to embed and extend freedom in the rest of the region in less deadly ways. This task will require G8 governance for many year to come.
In the wake of the unprecedented natural-turned-nuclear disasters in Japan, G8 leaders will consider how to strengthen nuclear safety standards while using nuclear power to fuel a more climate-friendly, energy-secure future. This they did before with some success following the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986. They will reconsider the global regimes for responding to the natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis, that so frequently strike powerful countries such as the United States, Japan and China, and very poor ones such as Haiti and Bangladesh. And following the successful exchange rate intervention by their G7 finance ministers and central bank governors on 17 March, their first such move in a decade they will decide how best to ensure financial stability and economic growth for Japan and the tightly integrated world beyond.
On security, G8 leaders will address their strategy for winning their longest war, in Afghanistan-Pakistan, amidst the new demands in North Africa and with the Americans, Canadians and others due to hand over the combat rules to Afghanistan to the Afghans in the coming years. The United States’ elimination of Osama Bin Laden will provide a boost, but raise new questions about the relationship with Pakistan.
The potential spread of al Qaeda–affiliated terrorists to the Middle East and North Africa and the responsibility to protect innocent civilians and humanitarians in Afghanistan as well as Libya will make the G8’s counter terrorist agenda complex challenge indeed.
Partnership with Africa also embraces new security challenges, such as democracy in Côte d’Ivoire, piracy off Somalia, a drug trade running from the Americas through Africa to Europe, and mercenaries recruited in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa killing civilians in Libya at the behest of the Gadhafi regime.
With only four years left to meet the Millennium Development Goals, G8 leaders will need to maintain their advances against HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and polio, deliver their historic 2010 Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and support the forthcoming United Nations summit on the noncommunicable diseases of cardiovascular and lung diseases, cancer and diabetes, for these are the number-one killers of their own citizens as well as those in the emerging and most developing countries too.
To ensure their actions are effective and convince the legislature and citizens of their cash-strapped countries, they will need to strengthen the Muskoka initiative on accountability they launched in Canada in 2010. With the publication of the Deauville Accountability Report on the eve of the summit, they need to define the next steps and see how they can work more closely with their African partners in this regard.
Innovation on the internet and in environmental technologies offers the G8 a low-cost opportunity to leapfrog over the current energy and food insecurities to provide a more productive and prosperous life for all. Inspired by the vision at their Okinawa Summit in 2000 and the confidence that comes from leading the world in the creative capabilities that count in these fields, at Deauville G8 members will identify paths that can make the current 21st-century technological transformation as beneficial as those changes brought railways, electricity, telegraph, telephones and computers in centuries past. An e-G8 conference held on the eve of the summit in Paris will give the G8 leaders at Deauville fresh insights about how best to proceed.
The prospects for high performance from the G8 at Deauville flow from the particular configuration of causes that the proven concert equality model of G8 governance has shown produce strong G8 summit success in the past.
First, the Deauville G8 will be spurred to high performance by the high level and breadth of recent shocks that expose the vulnerability of its most powerful members, induce them to adjust, and inspire all to pull together for the G8 and global good. The lead-up to Deauville has seen world oil prices spike to a 2 1/2 year high of $127.02 a barrel for Brent Crude and $113 a barrel in April for the WTI crude, deadly terrorist attacks in Moscow, Niger and Morocco, a combined ecological and nuclear shock in Japan, financial shock in Europe from sovereign debt bailouts in Ireland and Portugal and a prospective restructuring in Greece, a food and commodity shock, and a war involving most G8 members erupting in Libya, exacerbated by the Libyan invasion on May 1 of the British and Italian embassies in Tripoli. These shocks have hit most G8 members directly, with only energy-rich, terrorist-free Canada largely unscathed. The terrorist and ecological shocks, and even that in Libya have already caused G7/G8 responses at the ministerial level, including the G7’s first co-ordinated exchange rate intervention in ten years to help a struggling Japan.
Second, the long established multilateral institutions have a high failure rate in coping with these shocks and the vulnerabilities that lie behind. There are no global multilateral organizations of consequence dedicated to deal with energy, terrorism and ecological shocks, or the Deauville issues of the Internet, innovation and green growth. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Hyogo Framework failed to prevent or respond well to the nuclear and natural disaster in Japan. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) support for the European bailout in Greece failed to prevent the contagion to Ireland, Portugal, and now Greece again or protect a disaster-afflicted Japan. The three food organizations in Rome and the World Bank have struggled to cope with rising food prices. To be sure the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) authorized the use of “all means necessary” against Libya in UNSC Resolution 1873. But it was unable in late April to activate its responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Syria and throughout a democratizing North Africa and Middle East. The G20 was similarly inactive and ineffective in addressing these shocks and priority issues, even those such as the Euro-crisis and Japan’s exchange rate that matched the G20’s core mission of producing financial stability for the world.
Third, in overall relative capability, the global predominance of the G8, while declining, has remained a majority of the global total, even in the face of the rapid rise of the emerging economies (including Russia on both sides of the divide). However, within the G8, internal equality increased sharply due to the decline of the US dollar and US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth relative to most other members of the G8. Moreover, in the specialized capabilities most relevant to the Deauville agenda – the Internet, innovation and green economy, security in Libya, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and African development which depends on official development assistance, the G8’s global predominance and internal equality remained high. The same forces that increased American and Japanese vulnerability at the top – rising oil and commodity prices – raised the overall capabilities of Canada and Russia at the bottom, reinforcing the G8’s overall global performance and increasing its internal equality even more.
The decline in the G8’s global predominance in overall capabilities was driven by the soaring value of the currencies of the emerging economies, including from China whose link to the US dollar remained tight. In the year up to Deauville, China’s yuan appreciated 5% against the US dollar in nominal terms and more in real, inflation-adjusted terms. Since the start f 2011, it appreciated 2.3% in nominal terms.
Forecasts for real GDP growth in 2011 placed the US at 3.1%, but China at 9.4%, India at 8.6%, Brazil at 4.4%, Turkey at 4.8%, Mexico at 4.3%, Korea at 4.5%, and South Africa at 3.5% (Atkins and Giles 2011).
Within the G8, equalization of overall capabilities was high, driven largely by the general decline in the US dollar against the currencies of the other countries in the club. By the end of April 2011, the US dollar had dropped almost 8% against a trade-weighted basket of currencies during the past nine months it fell 3.8% in April alone, to end at its lowest level since July 2008 when crude oil had peaked above $145 per barrel. Conversely, by the end of April, oil-rich Russia’s rouble had risen to its highest level against the US dollar since late 2008, with an 8% gain in 2011 to reach 27.79 US.
A similar equalization took place in GDP growth. In 2010 GDP growth in the G8 had been led by Japan, Germany and Canada, with the US in the middle, and France, the US and Italy below. In the year to end of April 2011, the G8 leader was Russia at 4.5%, Germany at 4.0%, Canada at 3.3% ad then the US at 3.1%. US growth in the first quarter of 2011 was only 1.8% at an annualized rate, less than the UK’s at 2%. Real GDP growth forecasts for all of 2011 put the US at 3.1%, the UK at 1.8%, and the Eurozone at 1.7%, but Russia at 4.4%.
In the realm of the most relevant specialized capabilities, the G8’s had very high externally predominant and internally equal military capabilities needed to enforce the responsibility to protect in Libya was one area where. The same was true in cyberspace. The same was true in official development assistance, which the G8’s African partners valued a great deal.
Fourth, in the common democratic principles of its members, the character and commitment of G8 countries remained high. Free and fair elections were held without irregularities in Canada. In Russia, Putin and Medvedev openly disagreed with each other in the lead-up to parliamentary elections in December and Presidential ones in 2012. The G8’s democratic devotion deepened with all members’ support for the use of “all necessary means” to meet the international responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Libya. It was notable that at the UNSC and elsewhere, several non-G8 members of the G20 stood on the other side.
Fifth, the G8 leaders come to Deauville with a moderate level of political control, capital, continuity, competence, conviction and civil society support. Political control and capital are low, but continuity, competence, conviction and civil society support are high.
Political control is low. America’s Barak Obama lacks control of his legislature, Japan’s Naoto Kan faces the possibility of a party coup, Germany’s Angela Merkel has weakened support of her Lander, and thus in upper chamber and from her coalition partners FDP. Britain’s David Cameron leads a coalition government. Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi has a thin and fragile coalition approaching a minority. Visible disagreements between Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin grow. Only Canada’s Stephen Harper arrives with his third general election victory, his first majority government, and the virtual death of a separatist party, all secured on May 2,
Political capital is also low in most G8 countries. In the US, due to rising gas prices, by the late April, 57% of Americans disapproved of President Obama’s handling of the economy and almost 80% felt the economy was stagnating or worse (Kirch-Goessner 2011). The elimination of Bin Laden led to a strong surge, but it was likely it would not last long. In Japan, a Kyodo poll in early May showed only 13% thought Prime Minister Kan was exercising sufficient leadership, 46% that he was not exercising much and 30% that he was exercising none at all (Dickie 2011). In Germany, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, in the state elections in Baden-Wurtemberg in early April, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party increased its votes but lost power as the Greens doubled their vote to 24% (Peel 2011). In Russia, by late April, support for Medvedev and Putin’s party had dropped to a new low of 43%, while Putin’s trustworthiness was 53% and Medvedev’s 46% (Clover 2011).
Deauville benefits from the high political continuity of the G8 leaders. All are summit veterans. They are led by Silvio Berlusconi coming to his summit, having hosted three of his own in 1994, 2001 and 2009. Angela Merkel and Stephen Harper are coming to their sixth summits, each having hosted one before. Sarkozy will be at his fifth summit and his first as host. The relative newcomers are Dimitri Medvedev at his fourth summit, Barak Obama at his third, and Naoko Kan at his second, with none having hosted before. From the European Union will come Herman Van Rompuy to his fourth summit and Jose Manuel Barroso to his seventh with no novices, and with experience concentrated in the less powerful countries, there is thus a high depth, spread and offsetting equality of experience in both domestic political management at home and G8 summit diplomacy abroad.
Professional competence is low, as few leaders have had any ministerial or professional background in the issue areas that made up the Deauville agenda. On peace and security, none have been defence or foreign ministers or have a military background. On African partnership, none have been development ministers or worked in or for Africa before. On the Internet, innovation and green growth, almost none had previously served in the relevant ministries or fields. Merkel’s experience as a physicist and as a minister of the environment will help on the nuclear safety and green growth files.
The personal convictions the leaders bring to Deauville match well the summit agenda and are compatible as a convergent set. Sarkozy committed to restoring France’s international leadership and sees the Mediterranean, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa as a natural focus for his ambitions. Obama is committed to poverty reduction especially among Afro-Americans at home and by extension, among African partners abroad.
Civil society support for both the G8 as an institution and its priority issues is high. Canada’s Stephen Harper, who had hosted the 2010 summit, won his first majority government on May 2, 2011, driving to a new low of third place the opposition Liberals Party which, during the campaign had continually criticized the high costs and allegedly non-existent accomplishments of the G8 Muskoka Summit in June 2010.
On Deauville’s centrepiece issue of democratizing Libya, in host France a strong majority supported French military intervention for the cause. In Canada all four major political parties did.
Sixth, the constricted, controlled participation of the Deauville summit is high. As with the 2010 Muskoka summit, it is a back to basics, two day affair in a remote resort town where G8 leaders will meet alone on the first day, and be joined by their African partners on the second. Unlike 2010, they will be free of the distraction of having to rush out at the end of the second day to start a G20 summit that evening in a city nearby. They will also be joined by the new leaders of Egypt and Tunisia to discuss their political and economic transformations (Reddy 2011). This choice of guests well matches the summit’s priority agenda, and deepens the democratic character of the club. The shared social purpose should more than offset the transaction costs the additional guests will bring.
Atkins, Ralph and Chris Giles (2011). “In a Tight Spot,” Financial Times, April 7, p.9.
Clover, Charles (2011). “Medvedev and Putin Losing Ground in Opinion Polls,” Financial Times, April 23/24, p.7.
Dickie, Mure (2011). “Pressure Builds on Kan after Safety Aide Quits,” Financial Times, April 23-24, p.2.
Kirch-Gaessner, Stephanie (2011). “Obama Seen as Failing on Economy,” Financial Times, April 23-24, p.3.
Kirton, John and Madeline Koch, eds., The G8 Deauville Summit May 2011: New World, New Ideas (Newsdesk Communications: London).
Peel, Quentin (2011). “Poll Defeat Fuels Merkel’s Critics,” Financial Times, March 28, p.3.
Reddy, Sudeep (2011). “World Bank Weighs More Aid for Tunisia to Rebuild Economy,” Wall Street Journal, May 5, p.11.
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