. Calls grow within G8 to expel Italy as summit plans descend into chaos
While US tries to inject purpose into meeting, Italy is lambasted for poor planning and reneging on overseas aid commitments
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 July 2009 19.30
Preparations for Wednesday's G8 summit in the Italian mountain town of L'Aquila have been so chaotic there is growing pressure from other member states to have Italy expelled from the group, according to senior western officials.
In the last few weeks before the summit, and in the absence of any substantive initiatives on the agenda, the US has taken control. Washington has organised "sherpa calls" (conference calls among senior officials) in a last-ditch bid to inject purpose into the meeting.
"For another country to organise the sherpa calls is just unprecedented. It's a nuclear option," said one senior G8 member state official. "The Italians have been just awful. There have been no processes and no planning."
"The G8 is a club, and clubs have membership dues. Italy has not been paying them," said a European official involved in the summit preparations.
The behind-the-scenes grumbling has gone as far as suggestions that Italy could be pushed out of the G8 or any successor group. One possibility being floated in European capitals is that Spain, which has higher per capita national income and gives a greater percentage of GDP in aid, would take Italy's place.
The Italian foreign ministry did not reply yesterday to a request to comment on the criticisms.
"The Italian preparations for the summit have been chaotic from start to finish," said Richard Gowan, an analyst at the Centre for International Co-operation at New York University.
"The Italians were saying as long ago as January this year that they did not have a vision of the summit, and if the Obama administration had any ideas they would take instruction from the Americans."
The US-led talks led to agreement on a food security initiative a few days before the L'Aquila meeting, the overall size of which is still being negotiated. Gordon Brown has said Britain would contribute £1.1bn to the scheme, designed to support farmers in developing countries.
However, officials who have seen the rest of the draft joint statement say there is very little new in it. Critics say Italy's Berlusconi government has made up for the lack of substance by increasing the size of the guest list. Estimates of the numbers of heads of state coming to L'Aquila range from 39 to 44.
"This is a gigantic fudge," Gowan said. "The Italians have no ideas and have decided that best thing to do is to spread the agenda extremely thinly to obscure the fact that didn't really have an agenda."
Silvio Berlusconi has come in for harsh criticism for delivering only 3% of development aid promises made four years ago, and for planning cuts of more than 50% in Italy's overseas aid budget.
Meanwhile, media coverage in the run-up to the meeting has been dominated by Berlusconi's parties with young women, and then the wisdom of holding a summit in a region experiencing seismic aftershocks three months after a devastating earthquake as a gesture of solidarity with the local population.
The heavy criticism of Italy comes at a time when the future of the G8 as a forum for addressing the world's problems is very much in question. At the beginning of the year the G20 group, which included emerging economies, was seen as a possible replacement, but the G20 London summit in April convinced US officials it was too unwieldy a vehicle.
The most likely replacement for the G8 is likely to be between 13- and 16-strong, including rising powers such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, which currently attend meetings as the "outreach five" But any transition would be painful as countries jostle for a seat. Italy's removal is seen in a possibility but Spanish membership in its place is unlikely. The US and the emerging economies believe the existing group is too Euro-centric already, and would prefer consolidated EU representation. That is seen as unlikely. No European state wants to give up their place at the table.
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worried
07 Jul 09, 11:13am
While US tries to inject purpose into meeting, Italy is lambasted for poor planning and reneging on overseas aid commitments
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 July 2009 19.30
Preparations for Wednesday's G8 summit in the Italian mountain town of L'Aquila have been so chaotic there is growing pressure from other member states to have Italy expelled from the group, according to senior western officials.
In the last few weeks before the summit, and in the absence of any substantive initiatives on the agenda, the US has taken control. Washington has organised "sherpa calls" (conference calls among senior officials) in a last-ditch bid to inject purpose into the meeting.
"For another country to organise the sherpa calls is just unprecedented. It's a nuclear option," said one senior G8 member state official. "The Italians have been just awful. There have been no processes and no planning."
"The G8 is a club, and clubs have membership dues. Italy has not been paying them," said a European official involved in the summit preparations.
The behind-the-scenes grumbling has gone as far as suggestions that Italy could be pushed out of the G8 or any successor group. One possibility being floated in European capitals is that Spain, which has higher per capita national income and gives a greater percentage of GDP in aid, would take Italy's place.
The Italian foreign ministry did not reply yesterday to a request to comment on the criticisms.
"The Italian preparations for the summit have been chaotic from start to finish," said Richard Gowan, an analyst at the Centre for International Co-operation at New York University.
"The Italians were saying as long ago as January this year that they did not have a vision of the summit, and if the Obama administration had any ideas they would take instruction from the Americans."
The US-led talks led to agreement on a food security initiative a few days before the L'Aquila meeting, the overall size of which is still being negotiated. Gordon Brown has said Britain would contribute £1.1bn to the scheme, designed to support farmers in developing countries.
However, officials who have seen the rest of the draft joint statement say there is very little new in it. Critics say Italy's Berlusconi government has made up for the lack of substance by increasing the size of the guest list. Estimates of the numbers of heads of state coming to L'Aquila range from 39 to 44.
"This is a gigantic fudge," Gowan said. "The Italians have no ideas and have decided that best thing to do is to spread the agenda extremely thinly to obscure the fact that didn't really have an agenda."
Silvio Berlusconi has come in for harsh criticism for delivering only 3% of development aid promises made four years ago, and for planning cuts of more than 50% in Italy's overseas aid budget.
Meanwhile, media coverage in the run-up to the meeting has been dominated by Berlusconi's parties with young women, and then the wisdom of holding a summit in a region experiencing seismic aftershocks three months after a devastating earthquake as a gesture of solidarity with the local population.
The heavy criticism of Italy comes at a time when the future of the G8 as a forum for addressing the world's problems is very much in question. At the beginning of the year the G20 group, which included emerging economies, was seen as a possible replacement, but the G20 London summit in April convinced US officials it was too unwieldy a vehicle.
The most likely replacement for the G8 is likely to be between 13- and 16-strong, including rising powers such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, which currently attend meetings as the "outreach five" But any transition would be painful as countries jostle for a seat. Italy's removal is seen in a possibility but Spanish membership in its place is unlikely. The US and the emerging economies believe the existing group is too Euro-centric already, and would prefer consolidated EU representation. That is seen as unlikely. No European state wants to give up their place at the table.
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worried
07 Jul 09, 11:13am
There is another side to all of this. And the one- sidedness of this article cries out for it.
Let's put it this way, shall we?
1. None of the G8 members have anything to propose, but let's hide that behind an attack on Italy.
2. The general public doesn't even know what they are doing or why they are even bothering to spend the travel money, and the press has already clearly told everyone that the G8 is a gas house of 'senior' politicians who promise lots in front of cameras and then don't deliver. So there is no public support.Let's put it this way, shall we?
1. None of the G8 members have anything to propose, but let's hide that behind an attack on Italy.
3. Berlusconi has decided to place all these pious politicians in a spot where real urgency and potential for human disaster can be felt through their feet and into their stomachs. Not a bad idea at all!!.
4. Turning on Berlusconi is simply political opportunism of the lowest kind that we rarely see out in the open.
5. Going crying to Mr Obama is either a lying slant on what is going on or a statement so dire of collective EU political backbone that the press should be taking it up.
Just to be clear to all those who think I may be ignorant of the 'Berlusconi' epic,
this article in my opinion should be about the G8 and its effectiveness and not Berlusconi.
The G8 is a collective body. It is outrageous to place collective uselessness, collective unwillingness, collective hypocrisy on the back of the organiser of this G8 using the angle that Berlusconi should be rubbished.
Have you already forgotten the photo ops with Bliar, with Sarwhosehe et al?
Come on guys? React.
monopolyongod
07 Jul 09, 11:43am
Spain could hack it. It is, suprisingly, a very un-doctranaire country. The media is, of course, owned by pressure groups, but they are reasonably well-distributed. And here we don´t have plastic olive trees planted for the EU satellite subsiduary count. We have olive trees.
FarmingFirst
07 Jul 09, 12:04pm
The G8's recent commitment to increase agriculture funding is a step in the right direction. The Farming First website has more information about how agriculture funding should be allocated. The supporter organisations have also created a video on food security and sustainable agriculture which can be seen here: www.vimeo.com/4274344
MartynInEurope
07 Jul 09, 12:09pm
MartynInEurope
07 Jul 09, 12:09pm
Getting Spain into the G8 makes a lot of sense
Landes
07 Jul 09, 12:16pm
Landes
07 Jul 09, 12:16pm
The G8 is dead anyway. The bilaterals of the last year, and especially the G20ish, underline it. This will go the way of the history books as a bit of a dying pantomime.
Whatever shape the world will be in in ten or twenty years time, the presence of Italy will be a sign that an organisation is beyond use. Italy's only hope is secession of the northern half/third to reconnect politicians at the state level with how the country really works and thinks. Otherwise its future is that of a cultural disneyland, glad to have the legacy of the past to allow it to make some money in the present.
Whatever shape the world will be in in ten or twenty years time, the presence of Italy will be a sign that an organisation is beyond use. Italy's only hope is secession of the northern half/third to reconnect politicians at the state level with how the country really works and thinks. Otherwise its future is that of a cultural disneyland, glad to have the legacy of the past to allow it to make some money in the present.
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