Expensive G7 Summit: High Expenditure, Little Benefit?

Every year, the G7 summits take place in small, remote places, strictly sealed off from the outside world. Are the millions worth it? Or is it all just a useless PR spectacle?

When tourists come to the idyllic Bavarian town of Elmau, they are primarily looking for one attraction: the wooden bench with the backdrop of the Alps. After all, world politics was made on the barren wooden bench. Seven years ago, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel and then-US President Barack Obama sat there and discussed the global climate. The image of the two powerful politicians went around the world.

Tourists want to see the “Obama Bank”.

Obama’s visit with Merkel to a white sausage breakfast in Krün a few kilometers away had a similar effect. The whole village – men in lederhosen and chamois beard hats and women in dirndls – celebrated the cool performance of the US President in bright sunshine. The beaming Obama with sausage and wheat beer on the beer bench was pictured on television and in newspapers around the world. The “Obama Bank” has since become a cult object and attracts numerous tourists to the town hall square.

Such human moments of top politicians with postcard motif create trust and stick in the collective memory of the people. But do you have to spend more than 100 million euros for this? Many ask themselves that. The last G7 summit in Schloss Elmau in 2015 alone cost a good 135 million euros. 2.2 million euros were invested in a border fence to keep the demonstrators away from the conference site.

Criticism of the excessive costs

“The costs are disproportionate,” complained the president of the Bavarian taxpayers’ association back then. The security conference with a similarly high security requirement is held in Munich every year for around three million euros. “Elmau doesn’t make any sense.”

Is this big, expensive PR staging with the most powerful heads of state and government of the seven largest western industrialized countries worthwhile? Or does the summit send political and economic impulses that are worth more than a three-digit million amount? Critics accuse the organizers of the G7 summit of making beautiful political declarations of intent at the annual meeting that hardly advance the world.

Most G7 commitments are being met

A research group at the University of Toronto knows better. It regularly analyzes the extent to which the commitments of the G7 summit are being implemented. Their result is amazing: 75 to 85 percent of the commitments were met.

The G7 meeting in Schloss Elmau brought about a breakthrough in the climate negotiations. In the final communiqué, the seven largest western industrialized countries promised to limit global warming to a maximum of two degrees. This contributed significantly to the agreement of the world community on this climate target a few months later in Paris.

On the other hand, another noble goal was missed: In Elmau, the participants of the G7 summit agreed to free around 500 million people from hunger by 2030. In fact, over the past seven years, the number of people suffering from hunger has continued to rise to over 810 million. Klaus Seitz, head of the politics department at the “Bread for the World” organization, complains that the percentage of the world’s population who are starving has even increased. “The previous strategies have obviously failed.”

Mixed record

There were also successes at other summits. In the fight against AIDS, the G8 countries promised at the summit in Heiligendamm in 2007 (at that time still with Russia) to make 60 billion dollars available for the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the coming years. Six years later, the UN HIV/AIDS Program ruled that the commitments had been met.

At the meeting in L’Aquila, Italy, the G8 countries promised development aid of 20 billion dollars for farmers in Africa within three years. In 2012, the OECD determined that almost half of the commitments were paid out. Some countries would have paid the development aid in full.

However, that shouldn’t hide the fact that many of the promises are just small steps. “With the 300 to 400 individual commitments at each summit, a lot falls by the wayside,” says expert Seitz from “Brot für die Welt”. The summits convey the message that politicians care about the big problems facing humanity. However, this does not solve them for a long time.

Is G7 still up to date?

There is also criticism of the format. Some experts wonder if the G7 meeting is still up to date. Because they only bring together the most important representatives of the western world and exclude China, India and, since 2015, Russia. But the world economic problems cannot be solved without the up-and-coming emerging countries. That is why the annual G20 summit was founded in 2008. He is more representative and has two UN Security Council members on board, Russia and China.

The G7 supporters point out that there is no possibility for small informal meetings. The G7 summit is one of the few rounds in which the most powerful heads of state and government in the western world can discuss global issues without pressure to make decisions.

Is it worth the effort?

In view of the increasingly high costs for security and logistics, the question arises as to whether the two-day summit meetings in remote locations are worth the effort. The current summit in Schloss Elmau costs a good 166 million euros – another 30 million more than seven years earlier. The bulk of it, around 147 million euros, is earmarked for police operations. The summit in Biarritz in southern France shows that there is a cheaper way. Only around 36 million euros were estimated for him.

“People meet for nice photos, the explanations are agreed beforehand,” criticized Benjamin Ruß, spokesman for the “Stop G7 Elmau” alliance, in 2015. You have 24 hours for ten difficult topics. “No one can claim that a serious debate is possible.” He calls for the G7 meetings to be abolished. “You don’t have to spend up to 200 million euros for a few people to sleep in a luxury hotel.”

Fear of riots

And the meetings are not peaceful everywhere. Around the G8 summit in Heiligendamm there was a riot in Rostock with many injured. Unforgotten are the violent riots between the police and globalization critics at the 2001 G8 summit in the Italian city of Genoa. And at the G20 summit in Hamburg, the riots in the Schanzenviertel overshadowed the political rapprochement between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.