Together with French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, he pushed for the establishment of the Group of Seven to coordinate international economic policies, and played a leadership role at the G-7’s first summit, in Rambouillet in 1975. That same year he sat next to East Germany’s leader Erich Honecker in Helsinki while signing the “Final Act” of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe – a major breakthrough for détente policy and in opening the closed societies of the USSR and Warsaw Pact.