Fifty years ago, this fall, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States gathered in a castle on the outskirts of Paris during three days of meetings, at the end of which they issued the Rambouillet statementA declaration of principles and commitments of 15 points.
By pointing out that they were “each responsible for the government of an open and democratic society, dedicated to individual freedom and social progress,” the group of six said they had joined due to “shared beliefs and shared responsibilities.”
The leaders promised to “strengthen our efforts for closer international cooperation and a constructive dialogue between all countries”, “restore growth in the volume of world trade” and “restore greater stability in the underlying economic and financial conditions in the world economy.”
In June 1976, with Canada on the table to create the G7, the leaders met in Puerto Rico and declared that “the interdependence of our destinations makes us necessary to address common economic problems with a common sense of purpose and work towards mutually consistent economic strategies through better cooperation.”
Last year, when G7 leaders gathered in Italy for the 2024 summit, they agreed a joint communication of almost 20,000 words, which covered their shared positions in an expansive set of global problems, including the invasion of Russia of Ukraine, the War of the Hamas of Israel, food security, climate change, artificial intelligence, cybersegrity, migration, migration and migration The global economy. The pronoun “We” appeared dozens of times.
Even if it is fair to ask how much all words really equate, there is something to say about the value of the seven most powerful democracies in the world that come together to express common views and beliefs, in addition to the specific and tangible initiatives that often flow from their annual meetings.
But in 2025, on the occasion of the 50 of these meetings, it is not clear how much the seven leaders of these countries may agree. Such a lack of consensus would at least underline how much the world has changed in recent months.
Charlevoix’s ghost
It is unlikely that the 50th G7 meeting will produce an expansive statement. A senior Canadian official, who spoke with journalists this week, suggested that leaders will sign in some narrower statements on specific issues.
In that case, the results of the 2025 summit could resemble the exit of the 2019 Summit in Francethat produced a Succinct declaration of 259 words agreed by all leadersalong with specific statements on gender equality and Africa, and a couple of “summaries” that review the discussions that were.
That summit in Biarritz was remarkably the last time Donald Trump attended a G7 summit. It was also the first after the infamous explosion of G7 in Charlevoix, which. And the memory of that 2018 Summit – The last time Canada played the host – hangs from this year’s meeting in Kananaskis, high.
In question this week: Minister Mark Carney invites Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Saudi heir prince Mohammed Bin Salman to the G7 summit. Canada receives an impulse of defense expense. And how close we are from a commercial agreement with the United States?
The Charlevoix meeting is more remembered for what happened shortly after having completed. Trump, apparently harmed by the statements that Justin Trudeau made in his final press conference on US tariffs on steel and aluminum, Twitter used for Explain the Prime Minister and declare that the United States was renouncing the summit statement.
But those tweets were only the culmination of what had been 48 frantic hours, since the leaders and their advisors drunk on the writing of the statement.
The United States wanted the final declaration to refer to “an” international order based on rules, not “the” international order based on rules (essentially a disagreement about the current existence of an international order based on rules). The United States did not want to make any reference to Paris agreements on climate change (Trump had He took the United States from the agreements in 2017). There were other differences on Iran and plastic pollution.
A final release Finally, it occurred, agreed only moments before Trump left, but not all differences could be soaked: the division on climate change was explicitly recognized in the text.
Charlevoix’s example may have influenced Biarritz. And it can be helping to guide the Kananaskis approach.
The amount of work necessary to obtain a consensus document “would really mean a race towards the bottom” for what would be included, Peter Boehm, who was Trudeau’s main negotiator at the Charlevoix summit, He said in a recent interview With the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
This is, of course, a summit that will be carried out in the midst of a commercial war that is fought among some of the countries of the table.
The first objective for Carney, which has some experience with international summits as former governor of the Central Bank and finance official, at next week meetings could simply avoid another explosion. And that could mean pointing to a lower level of agreement, perhaps in line with the official priorities that the prime minister announced last week, which included counteracting foreign interference and transnational crime, improving joint responses to forest fires, strengthening critical mineral supply chains and taking advantage of artificial intelligence.
“There is courage to keep the United States committed to seeking cooperation in a closer set of priorities,” says Roland Paris, professor of international affairs and former Trudeau advisor.
What message will this year’s G7 send?
But if the seven leaders can no longer agree on many things, including large and fundamental things such as climate change or war in Ukraine, it is tempting to ask if the G7 still makes sense as a group.
“The internal strains of the G7 reflect the largest fragmentation of multilateral governance, at a time when the world needs more, no less, cooperation,” says Paris.
Kim Nossal, a scholar of foreign policy of the University of Queen’s, says that there is still value in the leaders of these seven nations that join in person to take a measure and discuss global issues.
“It seems to me that, from the perspective of one of the others [leaders]That is still a useful institution to continue until the United States under Trump wear it and burns it, “says Nossal.
The senior reporter of CBC, Ashley Burke, has the latest about how the government plans to manage the Summit of the G7 leaders next week, including the decision not to issue a final statement.
He said that a relatively limited agreement could send an implicit message about the state of the world (Nossal and I talked last week, before government sources began to suggest extensive joint communication would not appear).
“A good result is one in which there is a relatively anodine general communication in the end that Americans sign that demonstrates quite clearly how far are Americans for commitment,” says Nossal.
“That provides an incentive for the remaining members of the West to double each other to address the questions that Americans are no longer interested, for example, climate change.”
If there is no longer a belief unanimously between the G7 in shared responsibilities, that will give an even greater responsibility to those nations that still believe in the common purpose.
