ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief review of the features of top-level transatlantic discussions prior to the advent of global and European-level summitry, before then reviewing some of the major changes implicit in, and resulting from, the start of regular G7 and European Council meetings. In particular it will suggest that the advent of global summitry implied a commitment to collective Western decision-making that rather outstripped the readiness of Western powers to align their policies in such a way. The onset of the first serious economic downturn of the post-Second World War era ensured that stuttering growth and its knock-on social effects were perceived as a far greater existential threat to Western governments than the much-diminished military and ideological threat from the East. The rise of summitry did therefore have an important impact on transatlantic relations, albeit an impact that is often difficult entirely to disentangle from parallel developments that were pressing in similar directions.
