38th G8 summit

38th G8 summit
38th G8 summit official logo
Host country	United States
Dates	18–19 May 2012
Cities	Thurmont, Maryland; Frederick, Maryland
Follows	37th G8 summit
Precedes	39th G8 summit

The 38th G8 summit was held in Camp David, Maryland, United States, on 18–19 May 2012.

The event occurred just before the year's NATO summit. The G8 summit was moved from Chicago, where it was going to be held back-to-back with the NATO summit, possibly due to fears of a large convergence of protestors.

This was the first summit since Russia joined the group in 1997 that was not attended by the President of Russia; former President and current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attended in place of the recently reelected Vladimir Putin, who cited domestic obligations as his reason for not attending, though some interpreted the gesture as a sign of rising tensions between Putin's government and the West.

The Group of Six (G6) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. This select few became the Group of Seven (G7) starting in 1976 when Canada joined. The Group of Eight was formed with the addition of Russia in 1997. In addition, the President of the European Commission has been formally included in summits since 1981. 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 in 1975.