G8 Summit Sought Common Solutions to Global Challenges

27 May 2011

President Obama, second from right in the front row, appears in a photo with G8 and African leaders in Deauville May 27.

The Deauville Group of Eight (G8) Summit of major industrialized nations was focused on developing common solutions to some of the world’s most vexing security and economic challenges.

President Obama, who is on a four-nation, six-day European trip, praised French President Nicolas Sarkozy “for the leadership that he’s shown on the world stage over the last several years,” and for guiding to a successful conclusion the summit of G8 leaders in Deauville on the Normandy coast.

“As President Sarkozy indicated, we had an enormous convergence of approaches and views on the challenges that we face around the world,” Obama said at a brief May 27 joint press conference with Sarkozy.

The summit leaders discussed a wide range of issues from Afghanistan to Iran, the Arab Spring, Libya, Middle East peace, the needs of many African nations, and the world economy.

Obama, who has traveled to Ireland, Britain, France and a final stop in Poland, gave a sweeping address to the British Parliament in London May 25, paying tribute to protesters in Tehran, Damascus, Cairo, and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa. He called on Britain and the United States to support them in their quest for democratic governance and freedom.

“In country after country, people are mobilizing to free themselves from the grip of an iron fist,” the president said. “We are the nations most willing to stand up for the values of tolerance and self-determination that lead to peace and dignity.”

The president said at his press conference in Deauville that the G8 leaders agreed that the changes in the Middle East and North Africa have made the pursuit of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians more urgent.

“We agreed to coordinate closely in encouraging the parties to sit down around the negotiating table and to resolve this issue in a way that creates a Palestinian state that is sovereign and an Israeli state that is secure, the two states living side by side in peace,” Obama said.

The G8 leaders also discussed the enormous opportunities and challenges that have been presented by the Arab Spring and how they can fully support Egypt and Tunisia as they transition to democracy, Obama said.

The leaders addressed the progress being made in the Libya campaign, but meeting the “U.N. mandate of civilian protection cannot be accomplished when [Muammar] Qadhafi remains in Libya directing his forces in acts of aggression against the Libyan people,” Obama said.

France hosted the G8 summit in Deauville May 26–27, and will also host the Group of 20 (G20) major and emerging economies in Cannes November 3–4.