DEAUVILLE – Members of the G8 hailed the most recent summit as a significant success, dismissing claims of irrelevance after managing to secure a number of ‘amazing’ photos over the two days.
While no firm commitment on how to deal with Libya, the economic crisis or Afghanistan were achieved, the gathering heads of state did manage an incredible amount of pictures posing as if they were thinking really hard about the issues that currently plague the world.
According to a number of attendees, the two day photography session was one of the most demanding in recent memory.
“People think we stood around all day getting nothing done.” said French president Nicholas Sarkozy. “This is utterly false…we posed for lots and lots of pictures too.”
Effective diplomacy
British Prime Minister David Cameron in particular was praised for his attention to detail when negotiating the particulars of each photograph taken:
“Do you want my hand in or out of my pocket as I talk non-commitingly about how much aid we’ll hand out to poor countries? No, in is better…yeah, that’s it.”
Germany’s Angela Merkel believed after so many events the group now was very good at turning up, taking pictures and calling it a day with nothing to show for it.
“In that way, we are like a piece of well-oiled German engineering.”
The entire process was momentarily at risk of becoming productive when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested a potential resolution on global economic policy. Mr Cameron recalls that it took “a lot of doing to remind people that we are only here to appear like we are doing our jobs.”
“Dimetri was completely out of line when he tried to get us to sit down make any sort of measurable progress…I don’t know why we keep inviting him.”
The next steps
While enormously pleased with the number of photo taken, the G8 members insisted the summit was not about them, “but about the millions of people who will view these images and think we made a difference here.”
US President Barack Obama reminded those at home “this was not an easy victory. It took a lot of bi-lateral cooperation, coordination and fantastic lighting.”
At the close of the event, Mr Obama urged caution as he cautioned attendees that the hard work was not complete.
“This is only the beginning. We still need to get the images Photoshopped, uploaded to Facebook and tagged. It won’t be easy.”
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