- Angela Merkel – foto Wikipedia – source Ricardo Stuckert/PR
Today’s edition of the Deutsche Welle put it well – “From bitter enemies to firm friends: Germany and France have achieved true reconciliation over the last 50 years. The Elysée Treaty, signed back in 1963, can serve as an example to others.” http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16078972,00.html .
Chancellor Merkel met President Hollande in Reims, Eastern France earlier today. They were conspicuously close together, almost shoulder to shoulder on the 50th Anniversary of the Franco-German reconciliation.
-This on-going process was started by the then French President de Gaulle and German Chancellor Adenauer when they met in the Elysée Palace in Paris 50 years ago and today’s meeting again evoked the friendship between both countries and showed that they take their common responsibility, as the leading economic powers of Europe seriously.
For Hollande, the EU looks like it is being put to the test because of the recent financial and debt crisis -trust between Berlin and Paris was therefore essential as never before.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, in their meeting highlighted the importance of Franco-German friendship for both peoples and European integration.
Speaking directly about the financial crisis and about the future of the common currency the EURO, Merkel said that Europe is facing a big challenge, and that the monetary union needs strengthening and improvements.
She said a united EU could surmount any challenge including the dangers of a potential EURO debt crisis.
In January 1963 in Paris, the Franco-German friendship treaty, was signed and remains the basis for the close cooperation between the two countries.
The meeting today was the first in a number of events which will take place in both Germany and France up until the summer of 2013, in order to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty.
What’s so special about the Franco-German relationship? http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15912600,00.html
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50 years of German-Franco reconciliation – Chancelor Merkel meets President Hollande in Reims – ‘We will have to defend the euro’- by OTA-Berlin Constituency blog contributor Emil Hoogensteyn from OTA Berlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany License. If you use this article or parts of it, please refer to http://www.ota-berlin.de.
Tags: 50 years of German-Franco reconciliation, Chancellor Merkel goes out on a political limb, Chancelor Merkel meets President Hollande in Reims, deutsche welle, Francois Hollande, French Elections - Chancellor Merkel, politics makes strange bedfellows, The Elysée Treaty, Wolfgang Schäuble
