Mr Major’s Comments on the G7 Summit – 16 June 1995

Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on the G7 summit in Halifax, made on Friday 16th June 1995.

QUESTION:

[The Prime Minister was asked what the G7 summit had achieved].

PRIME MINISTER:

I think there is quite a lot of substance in the outcome of the summit on this occasion. We have agreed on a new Jobs Conference that will take place in France in the early part of next year, that will build on the conference that we had in Detroit last year and also on the work done by the OECD that produced a large number of illustrations of how best to create jobs, most of which of course were based on the British experience. So I think that certainly is a very good outcome. The arrangements to handle financial crises have been improved. We decided last year we would look at the United Nations, look at the financial institutions, and I think many people were shocked by the financial crisis following the lax surveillance of Mexico and their monetary problems. There are quite distinct improvements in that area. We made some more progress on helping the very poorest with their debt, I very much welcome the fact we have been able to do that. And we have produced quite a substantial menu of potential reform of the United Nations and its institutions. All those I think are very welcome.

Equally welcome is the further movements we have made on free trade. The Uruguay Round has finished but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a great degree of liberalisation still to be carried forward and we had a very substantive discussion about that and agreement to carry it forward.