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Big Four (Western Europe)

Big Four

The Big Four, also known as G4, refers to France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.[1] France and the United Kingdom are official nuclear-weapon states and are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power of veto, which enables any one of them to prevent the adoption of any "substantive" draft Council resolution, regardless of its level of international support.[2] The United Kingdom is the only country of the Big Four which is not a member state of the European Union, having ended its membership in 2020, pursuant to a referendum held in 2016. France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom are considered major European economic powers[3] and they are the Western European countries individually represented as full members of the G7 and the G20. They have been referred to as the "Big Four of Europe" since the interwar period.[4]

The term G4 was used for the first time when French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a meeting in Paris[5] with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to consider the response to the financial crisis during the Great Recession. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development describes them as the "Four Big European Countries".[6]

  1. ^
    • Mallinder, Lorraine (30 January 2008). "EU's 'big four' speak as one ahead of G7 in Tokyo". Politico.
    • Jørgensen, Knud Erik; Laatikainen, Katie Verlin (1 January 2013). Routledge Handbook on the European Union and International Institutions: Performance, Policy, Power. Routledge. ISBN 9780415539463.
    • "Leading indicators and tendency surveys". Oecd.org. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
    • Debaere, Peter (11 August 2015). EU Coordination in International Institutions: Policy and Process in Gx Forums. Springer. ISBN 9781137517302.
    • Lichfield, John (3 October 2008). "EU 'Big Four' in bailout row". The Independent. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
  2. ^ [1] Archived 20 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Kirchner, Emil J.; Sperling, James (2007). Global Security Governance: Competing Perceptions of Security in the Twenty-First Century. Routledge. p. 265. ISBN 9781134222223.
  4. ^ Hillman, William (30 September 1938). "Big Four of Europe Sign Munich Pact". news.google.com. The Milwaukee Sentinel. International News Service. pp. 1–2.
  5. ^ "RFI - Rescue of German bank falls through, G4 summit closes". Rfi.fr. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
  6. ^ "OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms - Composite leading indicator zones Definition". Stats.oecd.org. Retrieved 13 October 2014.

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