PREVIEW: Arab Spring, nuclear safeguards top the agenda of G8 summit

By Clare Byrne May 25, 2011, 8:22 GMT

Paris - Supporting emerging democracies in the Arab world and developing global norms on nuclear safety top the official agenda of this week's summit of leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations in the French city of Deauville.

Terrorism, the situation in Libya and aid to Africa are also up for discussion Thursday and Friday by the leaders of the United States, Russia, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan plus the European Union.

And then there's the issue of who should succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of International Monetary Fund (IMF). While the issue is not on the official agenda, European leaders are expected to lobby US President Barack Obama to support a European, with French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde emerging as a consensus candidate within Europe. Non-Europeans have different ideas, however.

Strauss-Kahn, who had been tipped to become France's next president until his arrest on May 14, had been scheduled to attend the summit. The IMF will instead be represented by acting director John Lipsky.

In total, 18 heads of state and government are expected in Deauville, which is being billed as a warm-up for French President Nicolas Sarkozy before the bigger G20 (G8 plus emerging markets) summit in Cannes in November.

The leaders of the interim governments of Egypt and Tunisia - the first Arab countries to oust unpopular leaders in popular revolutions - are among the guests. They have been invited to ink a partnership with the G8 and expect to walk away with promises of billions of dollars in aid to help smooth their paths to democracy.

Several incidents of unrest in the two countries in recent weeks have underscored the huge challenges they face as they prepare for elections and try to reinvigorate their all-important tourist industries.

While no figure has been put on the aid, sources in the French presidency said last week that the G8, working with the United Nations, IMF and World Bank, would make an 'important effort', both in terms of short-term and long-term aid.

US President Barack Obama, in his Middle East speech last week, called for up to 2 billion dollars in incentives for the two countries, including 1 billion dollars in debt relief for Egypt.

'We do not want a democratic Egypt to be saddled by the debts of its past,' Obama said.

Another key theme is nuclear security, with the near meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March causing some G8 members such as Italy and Germany to rethink their nuclear energy plans.

France, which gets 80 per cent of its energy from 58 nuclear reactors and exports nuclear know-how around the world, is on a mission to limit the fallout.

Sarkozy and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who are due to hold bilateral talks Wednesday ahead of the summit, have discussed drafting a set of global nuclear security standards by the year's end.

Also on the agenda in Deauville is the situation in Libya, Syria and the Middle East.

Five of the G8 members - the US, France, Britain, Italy and Canada - are engaged in a NATO-led intervention against Moamer Gaddafi's regime. The conflict is showing signs of becoming bogged down as Gaddafi clings to power in the west of the divided country.

In a move that could signal a change in game plan, French daily Le Figaro reported Monday that France was getting ready to send in attack helicopters, which would take the fight closer to the ground.

The leaders will also discuss the impact on global security of the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 2.

His death at the hands of US commandos prompted France to increase security around the summit, with some 12,200 police, gendarmes and military deployed to protect the 6,000 expected attendees.

Justifying the huge deployment, an interior ministry spokesman said bin Laden's demise and the recent bombing of a tourist cafe in Morocco 'justify a particular vigilance at the moment.'

The global economy, aid to Africa and the role of the internet in driving growth and social change also figure in the G8's typically dense, ambitious agenda.

Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa will represent Africa at the summit - along with the leaders of three countries that have recently emerged from conflict: Ivory Coast's newly-inaugurated President Alassane Ouattara, Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger and Guinea's Alpha Conde.

In a report last week, the G8 said it had nearly reached its 2005 goal of increasing development aid to 50 billion dollars, saying aid spending had increased by 'more than 48 billion dollars' since 2004.

Non-governmental organizations have challenged the figure, saying the G8 has used inflated 2010 prices to estimate its contribution, instead of 2004 prices.

Meanwhile, the inflated waistline of French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who will be in Deauville, is bound to cause much jostling among photographers.

Bruni-Sarkozy's father-in-law, Pal Sarkozy, last week told a German newspaper that the president and his third wife were expecting their first child.

The unpopular Sarkozy, whom polls show as likely to be defeated by the Socialist Party in next year's presidential elections, is in desperate need of a boost.

And a successful French presidency of the G8 and G20 would have the benefit of burnishing Sarkozy's reputation as a canny statesman.

The signs so far are auspicious.

An anti-G8 demonstration in the city of Le Havre at the weekend passed off without major incident.