|
 Russia will hold its first regular G8 summit on July 15-17 at
Konstantinovsky palace near St. Petersburg.
The Group of Eight (G8) is one of the major institutions that
the most powerful developed nations of the world use to coordinate their foreign
and financial policies. This “leaders’ club” gives to the most influential
politicians of the world a chance to meet regularly in person and directly
discuss the most urgent problems of the contemporary world politics. It should
be noted that G8 is not an international organization. It has neither charter
(founding treaty) nor secretariat. Its decisions are not legally binding; at the
same time these gentleman’s agreements constitute political obligations.
There are eight member-states at the Group. The European Union
participates in all G8 meetings and discussions but it never holds presidency.
The G8 presidency duration is one year. It is rotating as follows: France,
United States, United Kingdom, Russian Federation, Germany, Japan, Italy,
Canada.
A country holding the G8 presidency sets summit agenda in
consultation with other member-states. Russian priorities for the G8 summit are
energy security and education. Another important item on the agenda is combating
the spread of infectious diseases. Official website of Russia’s G8 presidency
is
http://en.g8russia.ru/.
PIR Center is organizing a number of events in the framework of
Russia’s G8 presidency. The most important event will be a Conference on
international security "G8 Global Security Agenda: Challenges &
Interests. Towards the St.-Petersburg Summit". This Conference is being
organized in coordination with the Presidential Administration of the Russian
Federation and the Ministry of Foreign Affaires of the Russian Federation. Among
the invited speakers to the Conference are: Aide to the President of the Russian
Federation Sergei Prikhod'ko, Aide to the President of the Russian
Federation and Russian G8 sherpa Igor Shuvalov, Minister for Foreign
Affairs Sergei Lavrov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of
the Russian Federation Sergei Ivanov as well as the leading governmental
and nongovernmental experts from the G8 states, China, India, Brazil, non-G8
countries that joined the G8 Global Partnership program, as well as
representatives of Russian and foreign business and organizations, dealing with
security issues. For further information about the Conference please visit http://www.pircenter.org/g8conference/eng/.
Among other events, PIR Center holds seminars and meetings of the Advisory Board and the Trialogue Club on issues of Russia's G8 presidency. Notably, December 2005 meeting of the Trialogue Club was devoted to the issues of energy security, one of the G8 priorities for 2006. In the near future PIR Center opens a Web-forum on international security and its first theme will be Russia's G8 presidency.
On its website PIR Center plans to monitor and analyze major
events connected to the Russia’s G8 presidency and inform about its activities
in the context of the upcoming summit in Russia.
Moreover, PIR Center continues to monitor the implementation of
the Global Partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass
destruction, which is one of the most ambitious G8 initiatives. This initiative
was launched at the G8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada in 2002. In the framework of
the Global Partnership the G8 and other donors agreed to raise up to 20 billion
U.S. dollars over 10 years for four priority areas: nuclear-powered submarine
dismantlement, chemical weapons destruction, fissile material disposition and
former weapon scientists reemployment. For further information about the Global
Partnership please visit http://www.pircenter.org/eng/gp/index.html
|
