GENEVA – The Group of Eight meeting that just ended in Evian, France, was the seventh meeting I have reported on. I began covering G8 meetings in 1996 with the Lyon G7 Summit, only missing the summit in 1999. Each year, the “presidency” of the G8 rotates to a different member country. With the ending of the Evian Summit, President Bush was just handed the presidency for the next 12 months. This year Russia became a full member of the alliance, which officially changed its name to the Group of Eight.
Since the 1996 Summit was my first glimpse of the world’s major ruling power structure, I was overcome with the depth, breadth and reach of the seven presidents and prime ministers over all the countries of the world, because very little had been written about it. In order to understand how entities are related, I like to make a chart. When I chart the major entities that “rule the world,” since the G8 does not print or control the world’s money, like the central banks do, they are under the Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, located in Basel Switzerland. Under the G8 is the United Nations.
Having said that, I have read 98 percent of the documents they have issued throughout the 28 years that they have been amassing power. I have seen many different changes in their evolving structure. In 1999, the central bank ministers started to meet with the G7 finance ministers (in America our finance minister is the treasury secretary). That means that when the G7 finance ministers meet, they are accompanied by the real source of financial power – the central bank ministers who control the amount of money a country has.
The G8 presidents and prime ministers have the political power because they are elected heads of state. When the G7 met in Birmingham, England, in 1998, I remember Tony Blair announcing that what every leader discussed were the problems back home. He then announced that since they all shared the same domestic problems, they were going to work together on common domestic problems in the future. From then on I saw the language of the documents change to “our peoples” and “our problems.” Do you see what I see? Such an innocent statement of grave concern – but it basically says a whole lot politically. Words have meaning, and meaning is conveyed through words. Do you see “integration,” or am I just imagining it? Am I overzealous with regard to the power and position of the Constitution?
I have called the Group of Eight a “global board of directors” and have stated that they have a “global cabinet.” However, I felt it was about time I went to the horse’s mouth. In the last two press briefings with French President Jacques Chirac, I asked about the position of the G8. The first time he replied, “The G8 is a club, it is not an authority, not an institution. The G8 does not have any particular legitimacy. At the outset it was made up of five countries who wanted to get the top leaders together to work in concert. It [now has] eight members. Working in concert remains its objective.”
In the final press briefing, I asked Mr. Chirac, “Yesterday you said the G8 was not an authority or institution, yet the world has followed your mandates for the past 28 years. You give your blessing to all U.N. treaties and conventions and you have issued more statements and mandates this year than in other years. You also spend the tax money of the G8 countries. Is the G8 a global board of directors with a global cabinet? Are you a new kind of U.N., or are you a new super-charged Security Council?”
He replied, “Well, that’s a question which people have been asking for the last 30 years, and I don’t know why. We are not the U.N. We are not a board of directors because we don’t have any power, and we are not asking people for it. We are people with a positive resolve who are aware that our actions for the world can be inconsistent or consistent. If they are consistent, it will be to everyone’s benefit, so our aim is to ensure that our actions are consistent. We don’t have any specific legitimacy.”
So let us take a quick look at some of their actions. Over the years, their final statement or communiqu? has expanded from two pages to over 120 pages. They began meeting with only the finance ministers. They have now added foreign, justice, education, labor, environment, health and development ministers who now meet separately from the Heads of State and carry out their own responsibilities for the world. This year, over a dozen various statements, reports, action plans and communiqu?s were issued on the topics of water, marine environment and tanker safety, health, the market and the economy, fighting corruption, transport security and control of man-portable air defense systems, trade, combating terrorism, and weapons and materials of mass destruction.
Some of the following phraseology is used: “We shall consider,” “We have also agreed to,” “We support,” “We reaffirm,” “We welcome,” “We call upon those,” “We emphasize the importance of,” “We will work together,” “We commit to pursue,” “We will jointly ask” and “We direct our ministers and officials to.” One of the reports from the G8 Senior Officials Group states, “Our leaders decided.”
Lastly, let me provide you with some of the specific topics and directives. On combating terrorism, they reaffirmed the U.N. Security Council’s counter-terrorism mandates that include counter-terrorism legislation, the establishment of border controls, drafting legislation on immigration controls and standards for travel documentation, implementing bilateral and multilateral cooperation on extradition and procedures for national police forces for counter-terrorism. Furthermore, they implemented new international standards for flight-deck doors and are going to explore experience gained from installation of onboard television monitoring system to control the security inside passenger aircraft and support the G8 Rome and Lyon groups Statement on Biometric Applications for International Travel.
On marine environment, they want the ratification and implementation of the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea that provides for the overall legal framework for oceans. This calls for the coordination and cooperation among national agencies and international organizations such as the International Maritime Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. I have studied this treaty, and it will set up a complete international legal entity to “guard” the oceans and seas. No country or person could fish unless they had a permit for this authority. Furthermore, it will have its own legal system for lawsuits. The U.S. has not ratified it.
With regard to international trade, they “stress faith in and commitment to the multilateral trading system. The Doha Development Agenda is central to the G8’s approach to energizing the global economy, increasing employment, spurring sustainable development, improving international governance and eradicating poverty.” Lastly, with regard to the global markets, they singled out corporations and corporate governance, social responsibility and the need for the Financial Stability Forum to work with other relevant organizations on market stability.
If the G8 is only a club, then how come they tell others what to do? How come all of the countries of the world that do not abide by their wishes are penalized? Why are all their mandates implemented? Why are the parliaments and, in particular, the U.S. Congress, so free with transferring their power instead of reigning in their leaders? If a duck looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, is it a dog? Emphatically, no.
Joan Veon is a certified financial planner and is president of Veon Financial Services, Inc., an investment advisory firm. Visit her website, WomensGroup.org.
