Inviting G5 adds legitimacy to G8
ITALY: Inviting five leading developing countries and Egypt to join
in the outreach sessions at the Group of Eight (G8) summit is aimed at
adding to the legitimacy of the organization, a German scholar says.
Leading developing countries were invited to the summit because “it
is difficult now for the G8 to be legitimate at all,” Milena Elsinger,
the head of Program Globalization and World Economy of the German
Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), told Xinhua prior to the Wednesday
start of the G8 summit.
“The eight industrialized nations do not represent world population
at all, they just represent a minor part of world population,” she said.
Although the G8 countries — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
Japan, the United States and Russia — represent a large part of the
global economy, emerging countries like China, India, Brazil, Mexico and
South Africa, known as the G5, are taking up a growing portion, Elsinger
said.
According to British news magazine The Economist, developing
countries in 2000 accounted for 37 percent of the world output by
purchasing power parities (PPPs), but in 2008 that share had risen to 45
percent.
“With integrating these countries and inviting them again and again,
they (G8) try to tell the world they do not want to rule the world, but
to integrate upcoming emerging economies like China, India, Brazil,
South Africa and Mexico,” she said.
Elsinger said the legitimacy of the G8 summit would “slow down, or
even more in the future,” but the eight industrialized nations “try to
hold on.”
“What would happen is that they have to integrate G5 into the G8, but
they would try not to do this formally,” she said, “They would try not
to achieve G13 because they say that would hinder discussions.”
However, the eight industrial nations have no reason to maintain the
G8 structure, Elsinger said.
“Basically, they try to hold on to it, but there is no reason why
they should,” she said, “They should definitely integrate the five
emerging countries into the G8 structure and make G13 out of it.”
L’AQUILA, Wednesday, Xinhua
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