BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 30 of 142

Correct — B, Russia. The G7 is a grouping of seven advanced industrial democracies — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada — which meet annually at leaders' level and continuously at ministerial and official level. The European Union also participates, represented by the Presidents of the European Council and of the European Commission, but it is not counted as one of the seven and does not hold the rotating presidency. Russia is not on that list, and the reason it feels as though it should be is genuine history rather than confusion. The group began as six at Rambouillet in France in 1975 — France, the United States, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Japan and Italy — with Canada added the following year to make seven. After the Cold War, Russia was progressively drawn into the political side of the summits during the 1990s and became a full participant, so that from 1998 the grouping was routinely called the G8. That lasted sixteen years. In March 2014, following Russia's annexation of Crimea, the other members suspended Russia's participation and cancelled the planned Sochi summit, meeting instead at Brussels; Russia has not returned, and the forum has been the G7 ever since. France, the United States and Italy — options (a), (c) and (d) — are all founding members from the summits of 1975 and 1976. The G7 has no charter, no treaty and no permanent secretariat; it is a coordinating forum whose weight comes from the combined economic size of its members, and its presidency rotates annually among them, with the holder hosting the summit and setting the agenda.

• (a)France — A founding member, and the host of the first summit. President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing convened the leaders of six industrial democracies at Rambouillet in November 1975 in the aftermath of the oil shock and the collapse of the Bretton Woods exchange-rate system, which is the meeting the whole institution dates from.
• (c)USA — A founding member and by far the largest economy in the group. The United States was at Rambouillet in 1975 and has hosted the summit repeatedly since; any list of advanced industrial democracies that excluded it would be meaningless.
• (d)Italy — Also a founding member from 1975, and the least conspicuous of the seven, which is why it is the option a hurried candidate is likeliest to strike out. Italy has hosted the summit several times, including at Genoa in 2001 and in Apulia in 2024.

International groupings divide into treaty-based organisations with charters and secretariats, and informal forums that exist only in the willingness of their members to meet. The United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund are of the first kind. The G7, the G20 and BRICS are of the second: no founding treaty, no permanent staff, no binding decisions, and a presidency that rotates annually with the host setting the agenda. The G7 emerged from the economic turbulence of the mid-1970s as a way for the large market economies to coordinate macroeconomic policy, and it has widened over time into foreign policy, security, climate and development. The G20, created at finance-minister level in 1999 and raised to leaders' level in 2008 during the global financial crisis, is the wider forum in which the emerging economies including India sit alongside the G7 — and its membership is now twenty-one, since the African Union was admitted as a permanent member at the New Delhi summit in September 2023.

Membership questions are answered by holding the founding logic of each grouping, because the logic explains who is in and who is not. The G7 is a club of advanced industrial DEMOCRACIES with large, mature, high-income economies, so China is not a member despite being the world's second largest economy, and Russia's membership was always the exception rather than the rule — it was admitted for political reasons after the Cold War and removed for political reasons in 2014. The G20 is a club of systemically important economies regardless of political system, which is why China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and India are all in it. Apply the logic and the odd one out on this page identifies itself. The other habit worth building is to keep the dates of expulsions and admissions, because that is where these questions get harder: Russia suspended from the G8 in March 2014, the African Union admitted to the G20 at New Delhi in September 2023, and BRICS enlarged from its original five in the same period.

• The G7 comprises the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada; the European Union participates but is not counted as a member.
• The group began as six at Rambouillet, France, in November 1975 — France, the United States, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Japan and Italy — with Canada joining in 1976.
• Russia's participation made the forum the G8 from 1998; it was suspended in March 2014 after the annexation of Crimea, and the planned Sochi summit was moved to Brussels.
• The G7 has no charter, no treaty and no permanent secretariat; its presidency rotates annually and the holder hosts the summit and sets the agenda.
• The G20, created at finance-minister level in 1999 and raised to leaders' level in 2008, is the wider forum that includes India; the African Union was admitted as a permanent member at the New Delhi summit of September 2023.

• Assuming Russia is still in because the term G8 is remembered. Its participation has been suspended since March 2014.
• Counting the European Union as an eighth member. It attends every summit and is not one of the seven.
• Assuming economic size determines membership. China is the world's second largest economy and has never been in the G7, because the group is defined by advanced industrial democracies rather than by GDP alone.

BPSC asks international groupings as odd-one-out membership questions, and refreshes them whenever a membership changes — an expulsion, an accession or a new grouping. UPSC has largely stopped asking bare membership and now tests what a grouping does or what a specific summit decided, so the same list has to be backed by the institutional detail behind it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The G7 grouping was formed in the mid-1970s primarily in response to

  • (a)the end of the Cold War
  • (b)the oil shock and the collapse of the Bretton Woods exchange-rate system
  • (c)the Asian financial crisis
  • (d)the establishment of the World Trade Organization

  Answer(b) the oil shock and the collapse of the Bretton Woods exchange-rate system — the first summit met at Rambouillet in France in November 1975 to coordinate macroeconomic policy among the large market economies.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  At which G20 summit was the African Union admitted as a permanent member ?

  • (a)Bali, 2022
  • (b)New Delhi, 2023
  • (c)Rio de Janeiro, 2024
  • (d)Rome, 2021

  Answer(b) New Delhi, 2023 — the eighteenth G20 Leaders' Summit, held on 9 and 10 September 2023 at Bharat Mandapam under India's presidency, which also adopted the New Delhi Leaders' Declaration.