Introduction
The Group of Seven (G7) is an informal bloc of industrialized democracies--the United States, Canada France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom--that meets annually to discuss issues such as global economic governance, international security, and energy policy. Proponents say the forum's small and relatively homogenous membership promotes collective decision making, but critics note that it often lacks follow through and excludes important emerging powers.
Russia belonged to the forum from 1998 through 2014--then the Group of Eight (G8)--but was suspended after its annexation of Crimea in March of that year. With tensions over Ukraine deepening, concerns over the eurozone's economic future growing, and the larger G20 serving as an alternative forum, the future of the G7 bloc is unclear.
Membership
France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States formed the Group of Six in 1975 (Canada joined the following year) to provide a venue for the non-Communist powers to address pressing economic concerns, which at the time included inflation and a recession sparked by the OPEC oil embargo. Cold War politics invariably entered the group's agenda.
The European Union has participated fully in the G7 since 1981 as a "nonenumerated" member. It is represented by the presidents of the European Council, which represents the EU member states' leaders, and the European Commission, the EU's executive body. There is no formal criteria for membership, but participants are all developed democracies. The aggregate GDP of G7 member states makes up nearly 50 percent of the global economy.
Unlike the United Nations or NATO, the G7 is not a formal institution with a charter and a secretariat. Instead, the presidency, which rotates annually among member states, is responsible for setting the agenda and arranging logistics. Ministers and envoys, known as sherpas, hammer out policy initiatives at meetings that precede the annual summit of national leaders.
The Russian Outlier
Russia formally joined the group in 1998 after partially participating in prior years' summits. U.S. president Bill Clinton thought that admitting Russia to the exclusive club would lend the country international prestige and encourage its first post-Soviet leader, Boris Yeltsin, to consolidate democratic gains and hew more closely to the West. Clinton also believed that membership would help mollify Russia as the NATO security alliance opened its doors to former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe.
But Clinton's decision to include Russia drew pushback from within the G7. Among the detractors, the U.S. Treasury and other finance ministries were wary of coordinating global economic policy with Russia, which at the time had a relatively small economy and large public debt. Indeed, the ministerial track for finance continued to meet as the G7, even as leaders and foreign ministers convened as the G8.
Russia's backsliding toward authoritarianism under President Vladimir Putin made starker the disjunction between Moscow and the other members, as did its foreign policy. At the 2013 summit in Northern Ireland, Russia's patronage of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in the midst of the Syrian civil war stood in marked contrast to the position of the other member states. Putin resisted other members' demands that the summit's communiqué call for Assad to leave office.
Russia held the G8 presidency for the first time in 2006 and once again in 2014, though effectively only for a few weeks, as Moscow's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 drew swift censure from its peers. "We will suspend our participation in the G8 until Russia changes course and the environment comes back to where the G8 is able to have a meaningful discussion," the G7 leaders said in a joint statement.
The decision of the seven other members to pull out of the planned 2014 summit in Sochi, Russia, and meet instead as a reconstituted G7 in Brussels was little more than a symbolic diplomatic step, many analysts say. The measure is "basically a reprimand saying you're not in our club, you don't meet certain standards of international behavior, much less domestic behavior," says CFR Senior Fellow Stewart Patrick.
Worsening Relations
As the conflict between Ukraine's military and Russian-backed rebel forces in eastern Ukraine has intensified, the United States and Europe have ratcheted up sanctions in an effort to further isolate Russia. In April 2014 G7 leaders met to coordinate sanctions against Russia, although members diverged on how far to go and which entities to target. The EU, which has deep economic ties to Russia, imposed penalties on a number of state officials and pro-Russia separatist leaders, but did not initially join the United States in sanctioning several prominent Russian businessmen, including Igor Sechin, chairman of the state-owned oil firm Rosneft.
As Russia fell into a deep recession in 2015, G7 leaders tied the lifting of