London: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to host Group of Seven leaders at a three-day summit in Cornwall in mid-June as the wealthy nations look to chart a course for recovery from the global pandemic.
Johnson will host the summit, the first in-person gathering for the G-7 leaders in almost two years, in southwest England June 11-13, the U.K. Cabinet Office said in an emailed statement. The U.K. takes over the rotating presidency of the group on Sunday, and will look to use its role to unite the democracies in a focus on economic recovery from a year largely lost to Covid-19.
Australia, India and South Korea will be invited as guest countries to the meeting that normally includes the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the European Union, the U.K. said. The group will have a virtual gathering in February that will include Joe Biden, who takes office as U.S. president on Jan. 20, according to two people familiar with the British proposal.
The U.K.’s G-7 leadership in 2021 is an opportunity to revive the forum after President Donald Trump was often seen as undermining it, including in Canada in 2018 when he refused to sign the end-of-summit communique.
The leaders met in Biarritz, France, in 2019, but the 2020 G-7, which the U.S. was scheduled to host, didn’t take place. That was in part due to the pandemic, but also because Trump tried unsuccessfully to hold it in person rather than rework it as a virtual event. – Bloomberg
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