The idea of having organizations which, in a series of summits, allow informal meetings between heads of state or governments from the most important and influential states in the world was sound in its conception. It provides key global figures with a place to interact, which often serves to ease tensions or even prevent conflicts. In the Cold War era it was an excellent medium for the exchange of ideas among the richest on the planet.

But today this formula needs a serious re-appraisal.

The members of the G7 were: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. In late-1997, the G7 became the G8, when Russia was added to the group.

Since the 1990s EU leaders, including the president of the European Commission, also began attending the organization's meetings. In the end, 10 leaders participated in the G8's June meeting in Toronto; six of them were European: French President Sarkozy, German Chancellor Merkel, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Italy's PM Berlusconi. The two EU Presidents, (President of the European Commission) José Manuel Barroso and (President of the European Council) Herman Van Rompuy, also  attended.

In the end, the June summit was a joke. Europe has for a long time been usurped as the geopolitical and economic center of the world, and G8 meetings – which include four European states – are now not much more than diplomatic niceties writ large. Certainly, they are no longer forums where global business is truly taken care of.

The rise of China and other emerging nations means international institutions must be reformed. The compositions of the G8 and the UN Security Council no longer reflect the global distribution of power.

So far, the creation of the G20 represents a move towards making such changes. But this group is diluted and responsibility is no longer taken at an individual level – hence people rightly say that the decisions in fact are taken elsewhere.

As an alternative, maybe a G2 should be established (if it not already in practice), comprising the US and China. But perhaps this would be too simplistic.

So, here's another idea: for a group of global leaders to make real changes one needs to forget about “political correctness.” Such groups cannot be too inclusive, otherwise decisions will be taken in even more secretive ways between a few unidentified leaders.

Such a group needs to include only those actors who have a weight and influence in global affairs – there is no room for those which are just regional powerhouses.

There are seven countries in the world today which would make the grade:

• The United States remains the world’s most important economic and political player.
• China is the world’s most important and influential developing nation and is soon to become the world's second-largest economy and number-one manufacturer. It is also the most populous country.
• India is the world’s largest democratic nation and its second most populous state.
• Russia is the world’s largest country (by area) and still has an enormous political and military presence on the global stage.
• Brazil, as the country which hosts the Amazon rain forest, holds the key to biodiversity in the world. It is also an important rising political and economic player not only in its own region, but across the globe.
• Japan is a major economic power, with a massive comparative advantage in innovation.
• The seventh entity which should also have a spot is the European Union – the world’s most advanced supra-governmental entity that escapes classical definitions of international organizations. As a whole it is the world’s largest economy, provides for more than half of global development assistance and aggressively promotes its original approach to international relations, which is based on international, legally binding instruments that would rule the global governance structure in areas such as trade, financial markets and climate change.

Those seven players collectively hold the key to the planet’s future. Like it or not, enlarging this list to include Canada, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Indonesia, Nigeria, Argentina, Mexico or Turkey would only dilute the most important players' responsibility and ability to make decisions with regard to where the world is heading.

What role would there be for Poland in this proposed system? It’s simple. Forget about Jarosław Kaczyński's illusions of Poland gaining a seat in the G20. Spain, with a GDP twice Poland's, is not even a G20 member.

What Poland should demand is not a seat for itself; it should demand that its German, French, Italian and British partners reduce their individual presence in global bodies, which at present levels does nothing but harm the collective impact of Europe in world affairs.