G-8 Summit Moves To Camp David, NATO Summit Stays In Chicago

By Samantha Abernethy in News on Mar 5, 2012 9:40PM

After months of preparations, Chicago will no longer host the G-8 summit alongside the NATO summit in May. Instead President Barack Obama will meet with the G-8 at Camp David before joining the NATO summit in Chicago May 20-21. The White House issued this statement today:

In May, the United States looks forward to hosting the G-8 and NATO Summits. To facilitate a free-flowing discussion with our close G-8 partners, the President is inviting his fellow G-8 leaders to Camp David on May 18-19 for the G-8 Summit, which will address a broad range of economic, political and security issues. The President will then welcome NATO allies and partners to his hometown of Chicago for the NATO Summit on May 20-21, which will be the premier opportunity this year for the President to continue his efforts to strengthen NATO in order to ensure that the Atlantic Alliance remains the most successful alliance in history, while charting the way forward in Afghanistan.

It's not clear yet how this will affect the preparations thus far. Surely protesters will still come to Chicago for the NATO summit. The city isn't about to return the riot gear or the blast-resistant wastebaskets. It's already been established NATO/G-8 ordinances will be permanent.

The Chicago Tribune reports police officials had estimated between 2,000 to 10,000 demonstrators were expected. Major demonstrations have already been planned, though. We'll see if they still follow through or if the protesters split their time between Chicago and Washington, D.C. Hacker group Anonymous has promised to barricade the city for the whole month of May, and AdBusters has planned to bring 50,000 protesters to Chicago.

UPDATE 3:50 p.m. -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel released this statement about the new plan.

We wish President Obama and the other leaders well at the G8 meeting at Camp David and look forward to hosting the NATO Summit in Chicago. Hosting the NATO Summit is a tremendous opportunity to showcase Chicago to the world and the world to Chicago and we are proud to host the 50 heads of state, foreign and defense ministers from the NATO and ISAF countries in our great city May 19-21.