List of G8 Leaders

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, 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 current president is Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. The leader who has been in office the longest of the eight leaders is considered the Senior G8 leader; the current Senior G8 Leader is President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

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.

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