35th G8 summit

35th G8 summit
35th G8 summit official logo
Host country	Italy
Dates	July 8–10, 2009
Follows	34th G8 summit
Precedes	36th G8 summit

The 35th G8 summit was held in L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy, on July 8–10, 2009. It was moved from the Sardinian seaside city of La Maddalena as part of an attempt to redistribute disaster funds after the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake.

The locations of previous summits to have been hosted by Italy include: Venice (1980); Venice (1987); Naples (1994) and Genoa (2001). The G8 Summit has evolved beyond being a gathering of world political leaders. The event has become an occasion for a wide variety of non-governmental organizations, activists and civic groups to congregate and discuss a multitude of issues. The Iranian government made a formal complaint to the Italian government about "violent suppression of justice-seeking protesters by the Italian police."

The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada starting in 1976. The G8, meeting for the first time in 1997, was formed with the addition of Russia. In addition, the President of the European Commission has been formally invited to summits since 1981 and participates in all but political discussion and talks. The summits were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a mild rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was a part of the genesis of cooperation between France's President Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the initial summit of the Group of Six (G6) in 1975.