The G8, or Group of Eight, is an informal group of the seven most economically powerful countries: France, the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada, known collectively as the G7, plus Russia. The current President of the European Union also participates (G9?).

The group has met every year since the six largest economies first met in 1975 in Rambouillet, France.

The first meeting was held to discuss the fallout of the world economic crisis brought about by the unilateral abandonment by the United States of the gold standard. Initially, the meetings were discussions of economic issues exclusively, but increasing elements of social and political discourse have been added over the years (the issue of nuclear weapons is what brought the relatively weak Russian economy to the table). The G7, excluding Russia, still meets to discuss exclusively economic issues the day before the meetings of the G8.

The meetings of the G8 are closed sessions, with not even the agenda being available.

While the G7/G8 and the accompanying "ministerial summits" that happen in preparation for it throughout the year are considered informal, the agenda which comes out of the meeting has significant impacts on other institutions. The meeting of the G8 is held in summer in order that decisions made there have time to feed into the annual World Bank/International Monetary Fund meetings in September and the WTO Ministerial held in November. While theoretically a consensus meeting, the dominance of the United States has led some people to refer to the meeting as the G1.

More general information on the G7/G8 can be found at:

The G8 Information Centre at www.g7.utoronto.ca