ABSTRACT
By the Denver summit of 1997, it was clear that the institutional review launched in 1994 was running out of steam. Tony Blair decided to focus the Birmingham summit - the first to meet in the UK outside London - on the renewal of the summit process itself. It was the first summit where leaders met alone, without their ministers, fulfilling the aspiration of the founders Giscard and Schmidt, which had never been achieved before. The political context for Birmingham 1998 and Cologne 1999 served to encourage harmony among the participants. Denver 1997 was the 'Summit of the Eight'; Birmingham was the first G8 summit. At both summits the G7 leaders held a meeting without Yeltsin and issued a statement on issues where Russia had nothing to contribute. Cologne continued the explicit focus on the strains generated by globalisation. The British had always wanted Birmingham to focus on debt relief for low-income countries.
