It is already possible to envisage the communiqué emanating from the Group of Eight summit at Gleneagles on July 6-8. No doubt there will be congratulatory chest-beating on the progress made in debt relief for Africa and for increased pledges of foreign aid. There is sure to be some reference to the importance of dealing with global warming. We can expect the usual exhortations about completing the Doha trade negotiations, not to mention dealing with global economic imbalances. But the issue that may have more significance for the G8 itself - and hence for global economic management - has not been subject to pre-summit consultation and manoeuvring and may take up no more than a line in the final G8 document. That is the fact that at the conclusion of the summit, the chairmanship of the group will pass to Vladimir Putin's Russia.
If ever there were a travesty of leadership by example, this is it. Two trends are changing the world for the better - freer markets and democratÂisation. Is it too much to expect that the G8 should stand for both? But, alone among the summit members, Russia is moving in the opposite direction of what is desirable. Moscow's leadership of the G8 reduces the credibility and the relevance of the group to zero. It also makes a mockery of the Bush administration's push for democratic, market-oriented societies around the world. Putting Russia in charge of the G8 is akin to the United Nations having allowed Sudan and Liberia to play big roles in its UN Human Rights Commission - a move that resulted in the irrelevance of the commission and a subsequent plan for radical reorganisation.
