Yale's Jeffrey Garten, he no like the G-7:
FT.com / Comment & analysis: ...These summit meetings are a far cry from what was intended when they were conceived in 1975. At the time, I was a young official working for Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state. I recall discussions about the importance of heads of state getting together in intimate, informal circumstances to build genuine rapport. The bureaucracy was to be kept to an absolute minimum. The objective was to manage the interdependence of G7 countries and for them to co-ordinate important policies in both their own collective interest and that of the world at large.
Today, these meetings are overrun by large bureaucratic staffs and have become gargantuan media extravaganzas. Except for sleep-inducing communiqués, G7 members barely deal with critical economic reforms within their own countries - the very policies that matter most to the global economy. Instead, they offer plenty of advice on what non-member countries should do. The group also likes to deflect attention from its inability to make the tough economic choices at home by loading the agenda with the political issues of the day. The non- proliferation of weapons and illegal traffic in narcotics are among past examples. Another diversionary ploy is to embrace the pet projects of the host countries, such as the digital divide (Japan's favourite) or African economic development (France's preoccupation).
Sooner rather than later, the world economy will need effective political leadership. It is foolish to think that any one country can alone provide this, or that it can be done ad hoc. Some formal collective effort will be needed. But before anyone designs a new mechanism, some big structural changes to the G7 should be considered...
The G-7 is, unfortunately, a victim of its own success. The most powerful force in its beginning was then-U.S. Treasury Secretary George Shultz, who believed that finance ministers and central bankers of different major economic powers needed to meet and get to know each other before there was a crisis, so that they would have already set the groundwork for cooperation when rapid cooperation turned out to be suddenly necessary. It seemed to work: the G-7 finance ministers got to know each other, business seemed to get done, and they told reporters that it was a useful meeting.
Then the prime ministers--most of whom are scared of their finance ministers--decided that they had to have a share in this positively-reported set of meetings too. They began to set up their own G-7 meetings. And then their policy, political, and media staffs began to come. And then the downward spiral in the usefulness of the meetings began. Because you can't have a big meeting without an important final communique, right?
There does, however, remain the initial need identified by George Shultz: people who will have to work together to solve global economic problems need to get to know each other, and their immediate assistants need to get to know each other as well. And the currently-structured G-7 meetings do go a little--a very little--toward meeting that need.
Posted by DeLong at May 27, 2003 11:36 AM | TrackBack
Perhaps some quiet social time together would be a good idea for economic policy makers, but the timing seems awkward right now. We needed a bit of social lubrication to make the Iraq debate at the UN work better, and failing that, as a way to keep bad feeling from contaminating economic diplomacy at a critical time. Sadly, the damage is already done. All sides should have the wisdom to understand that the interests of citizens are best served by good trade relations and by policy cooperation, but economic policy makers aren’t in charge right now. The decision in the US to make France pay (and vice versa, I’d bet, if it can be arranged) seems already made.
The question never to be answered is whether, if there had been better relations between G8 economic policy makers, any of the war-generated backlash could have been avoided.
"The question never to be answered is whether, if there had been better relations between G8 economic policy makers, any of the war-generated backlash could have been avoided."
Please explain this passage.
Posted by: bill on May 27, 2003 12:50 PMdon't forget that there are plenty of other times for the Finance Ministers and their assistants to meet - the annual World Bank/IMF meeting, the annual EBRD meeting and Davos are three that spring to mind. Even with all the media/protest attendance there must still be time for these people to get to know each other.
As a civil servant who has been present at a number of high level meetings, I have noticed that, almost invariably, the more important the people are, the less they have to say to each other. They just end up either talking about their pets or kids (if they like each other) or reciting their respective press releases to each other (if they don't). On the rare occasions when it IS necessary for them to agree something, the telephone is more than adequate for the purpose, as is e-mail. When I was very inxperienced, I used to be desperate to attend those meetings, where, I thought, important busniess was being done, but after a particularly futile five-hour extravaganza involving my bosses, I realised that all the work is done beforehand. It'd have been more productive if we'd all sat in my apartment watching The Simpsons.
But of course junior staffers who tend to organise these things like to pretend there's some point to them, so they can feel important and get their free vacations (hopefully adding some annual leave), and the world's press, who are always desperate for a story, conspire to hype the event, and publicise idiotic trivialities, like George Bush's body language towards Jacques Chirac.
The G7 (G8? G9?) is by no means the worst offender when it comes to these wastes of public money. They at least happen relatively infrequently. UN conferences are particularly bad, as are EU meetings, which involve at least two participants from each member state, and are conducted in 11 languages, so you have the associated hoards of translators and hangers-on. And the policies that come out of them (generally the lowest common denominator where not completely meaningless) could have been agreed much cheaper over e-mail. Still, it's only public money.
Posted by: PJ on May 28, 2003 02:56 AMAccording to
http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/finance/
the finance Ministers all got together in Deauville, France about 10 days ago (16/17 May). Deauville seems to be on the Normandy coast near Rouen.
Applebaum in the Post writes that Mr. Bush refuses to talk to Mr. Schroeder on the phone and will try to intentionally snub him at the conference. Maybe the meeting would be more productive if they had a group study of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Play nice and don't run with scissors.
Posted by: bakho on May 28, 2003 07:45 AMThe G-7 (not g-8, russians not invited) finance ministers meet as well, separatey from the PMs. Sometimes environment of culture Minsiter's meet as well.
There is also the G-20, a meeting of central banker's and finance Ministers from the g-8 plus large developing countries.
Posted by: Ikram Saeed on May 29, 2003 08:44 AM