This is a List of the heads of government of the Group of 8 nations at each G8 Summit since the Group's inception in 1975. The Group consists of the eight largest industrialized democracies, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Also in attendance is the President of the European Commission, who represents the European Union. The G8 holds an annual summit, which each nation's head of government attends. Each year the heads of government take turns assuming the presidency, whose job it is to set the agenda for and host the annual summit. The leader who has been in office the longest of the eight leaders is considered the Senior G8 leader.
While the current G8 consists of eight nations, it did not always. The group was formed as the Group of Six, G6, including all of today's members minus Canada and Russia, which at the time was still the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Canada joined in the second year of the group's existence, 1976, forming the Group of Seven, G7. Russia, as the successor nation to the USSR, joined the group in 1997, following the collapse of its Communist predecessor, under the leadership of President Boris Yeltsin.
Summit (Host) | Country | ||||||||
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Canada | France | Germany | Italy | Japan | Russia | United Kingdom | United States | European Union | |
1st 1975 France |
NA | Valéry Giscard d'Estaing | Helmut Schmidt | Aldo Moro | Takeo Miki | NA | Harold Wilson | Gerald R. Ford | NA |
2nd 1976 United States |
Pierre Trudeau | James Callaghan | |||||||
3rd 1977 United Kingdom |
Giulio Andreotti | Takeo Fukuda | Jimmy Carter | Roy Jenkins | |||||
4th 1978 West Germany |
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5th 1979 Japan |
Joe Clark | Masayoshi Ohira | Margaret Thatcher | ||||||
6th 1980 Italy |
Pierre Trudeau | Francesco Cossiga | Saburo Okita | ||||||
7th 1981 Canada |
François Mitterrand | Giovanni Spadolini | Zenko Suzuki | Ronald Reagan | Gaston Thorn | ||||
8th 1982 France |
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9th 1983 United States |
Helmut Kohl | Amintore Fanfani | Yasuhiro Nakasone | ||||||
10th 1984 United Kingdom |
Brian Mulroney | Bettino Craxi | |||||||
11th 1985 West Germany |
Jacques Delors | ||||||||
12th 1986 Japan |
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13th 1987 Italy |
Amintore Fanfani | ||||||||
14th 1988 Canada |
Ciriaco de Mita | Noboru Takeshita | |||||||
15th 1989 France |
Sōsuke Uno | George H.W. Bush | |||||||
16th 1990 United States |
Giulio Andreotti | Toshiki Kaifu | |||||||
17th 1991 United Kingdom |
John Major | ||||||||
18th 1992 Germany |
Giuliano Amato | Kiichi Miyazawa | |||||||
19th 1993 Japan |
Kim Campbell | Carlo Azeglio Ciampi | Bill Clinton | ||||||
20th 1994 Italy |
Jean Chrétien | Silvio Berlusconi | Tomiichi Murayama | ||||||
21st 1995 Canada |
Jacques Chirac | Lamberto Dini | |||||||
22nd 1996 France |
Romano Prodi | Ryutaro Hashimoto | Jacques Santer | ||||||
23rd 1997 United States |
Boris Yeltsin | Tony Blair | |||||||
24th 1998 United Kingdom |
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25th 1999 Germany |
Gerhard Schröder | Massimo D'Alema | Keizo Obuchi | Manuel Marín | |||||
25th 2000 Japan |
Giuliano Amato | Yoshiro Mori | Vladimir Putin | Romano Prodi | |||||
27th 2001 Italy |
Silvio Berlusconi | Junichiro Koizumi | George W. Bush | ||||||
28th 2002 Canada |
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29th 2003 France |
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30th 2004 United States |
Paul Martin | ||||||||
31st 2005 United Kingdom |
José Manuel Barroso | ||||||||
32nd 2006 Russia |
Stephen Harper | Angela Merkel | Romano Prodi | ||||||
33rd 2007 Germany |
Nicolas Sarkozy | Shinzo Abe | |||||||
34th 2008 Japan |
Silvio Berlusconi | Yasuo Fukuda | Dmitri Medvedev | Gordon Brown | |||||
35th 2009 Italy |
Taro Aso | Barack Obama |
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—Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940)