Élysée Treaty

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Signing of the contract in the Elysée Palace in Paris

The Franco-German friendship treaty , known as the Élysée Treaty , was intended to ensure consultations in France and Germany on all important questions of foreign, security, youth and cultural policy. It was signed on January 22, 1963 by Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the French President Charles de Gaulle in the Elysée Palace in Paris and came into force on July 2, 1963. The actual text of the contract is preceded by a joint declaration . The German Bundestag ratified the treaty and added a preamble to it. It reaffirmed Germany's close ties to the USA, its efforts to get Great Britain into the EEC and its striving for supranational rules.

This agreement on Franco-German cooperation has brought the two neighbors in Europe closer to one another after a long period of “ hereditary enmity ” and wars with many losses, but has not led to a common foreign policy.

Designations

The official title is:

  • Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on Franco-German cooperation or also
  • Treaty between the French Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany on Franco-German cooperation

Usually these shorter terms are used:

  • Agreement on Franco-German cooperation (see the stamps shown)
  • Franco-German friendship treaty
  • Élysée Treaty (see the coin shown)
  • Franco-German treaty

prehistory

The original document of the contract in the Élysée Palace, last page with the signatures
German postage stamp from 1973 , joint issue with France:
10 years contract on Franco-German cooperation
German postage stamp from 1988 , joint issue with France:
25 years contract on Franco-German cooperation
German postage stamp from 2003 (designed by Tomi Ungerer ), joint issue with France:
40 years contract on Franco-German cooperation
2 euro commemorative coin from 2013 , joint issue with France: 50 years of the Élysée Treaty

In the Treaty of Luxembourg , the heads of government Konrad Adenauer and Guy Mollet agreed on October 27, 1956 that the Saar area would return to Germany as an additional federal state, after the Saarlanders had rejected "Europeanization" a year earlier. In return, France was promised the canalization of the Moselle , which gave the Lorraine steel industry cheaper access to the North Atlantic. This solved the greatest problem in relations between France and Germany. In 1957 the Treaty of Rome was signed , which made the establishment of the European Economic Community possible. France carried out a currency reform at the end of 1958, preparing itself for the development of a common market. General Charles de Gaulle was of the opinion that Europe should be based on a Franco-German pillar that would counterbalance American power in Western Europe. The original plan was to sign only a joint protocol in the context of the Franco-German consultations that took place in Paris in January 1963; Adenauer de Gaulle only surprised de Gaulle during the Paris talks with the idea of ​​concluding an international treaty.

On the French side, François Seydoux de Clausonne , on the German side, Adenauer's foreign policy advisor Horst Osterheld played a key role in the conclusion of the treaty. The preamble , which was added to the treaty by the German side prior to ratification , caused displeasure in the meantime . In it the Germans declared their close ties to the USA and their willingness to accept Great Britain into the EEC . De Gaulle, on the other hand, pursued the goal of strengthening and expanding Europe's position vis-à-vis the USA with the help of the Federal Republic of Germany, i.e. weakening the importance of the USA.

The contract came into force on July 2, 1963 after it was signed. This was followed on July 5, 1963 by the founding agreement for the Franco-German Youth Office . In the period that followed, numerous town twinning partnerships and partnerships between schools and associations were established.

Motifs

De Gaulle was driven by the basic motive of French policy towards Germany, which he worked out as early as 1943 in a post-war plan: In any case, the Anglo-Saxon world had to be prevented from allying itself with Germany at the expense of France. His attitude became clear in the sentence: “For centuries the English have tried to prevent the rapprochement of the Gauls and Teutons. Today it's the Americans. "

Controversy

Two weeks after the contract was signed, the Soviet Union sent the German and French governments a protest note. The Federal Government replied, but the Soviet Union protested again after the ratification of the treaty by the Bundestag, repeating the arguments of the first protest note.

Two months after the signing, there were disagreements between Germany and France. De Gaulle's goal with the treaty was to persuade West Germany to move away from the USA and finally to separate. He was of the opinion that West Germany and other member states of the economic community were viewed by the USA as vassal states. It was noticeable that the treaty did not mention the USA, Great Britain, NATO and GATT ( General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ; German  , General Customs and Trade Agreement ).

After President John F. Kennedy had expressed his unease on this matter to the German ambassador in Washington, the Bundestag ratified the treaty with a preamble that France and West Germany to close cooperation with the US, the admission of Great Britain into the economic community, a free trade agreement within of GATT and the integration of Western Europe into NATO under the leadership of the USA. According to the Gaullists, this emptied the treaty of all meaning and put an end to De Gaulle's hopes to make the economic community a counterweight to the USA and the USSR. “The Germans behave like pigs. They submit completely to the rule of the Anglo-Saxons. They betray the spirit of the Franco-German agreement. And they betray Europe. "In 1965 he told his closest confidante:" The Germans were my greatest hope, they are now my greatest disappointment. "

Post-history

In 1988, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President François Mitterrand set up councils for the coordination of defense interests ( Franco-German Defense and Security Council ) and economic, financial and monetary policy in addition to the treaty . Since 2001, as a result of the “Blaesheim Agreement”, meetings between the two heads of government have taken place on a 6 to 8-week basis.

The first meeting of the Franco-German Council of Ministers took place on January 22nd, 2003, to mark the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Élysée Treaty . There was a joint meeting of the Assemblée nationale and the German Bundestag in Versailles, and a representative for Franco-German cooperation in both countries was appointed for the first time. In 2003, Germany and France created the jointly financed Franco-German Fund for cultural programs in third countries , the so-called Élysée Fund. This fund annually supports Franco-German cultural projects with a maximum of 25,000 euros. In 2011 he had 460,000 euros at his disposal. As part of the celebrations, the French President and the German Chancellor made a joint declaration , which is only to be understood as a declaration of intent and aims, among other things, to enable dual citizenship for Germans and French who wish to do so, and to harmonize families - and civil law. On the basis of the joint declaration, January 22nd was set up as Franco-German Day .

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Élysée Treaty, France and Germany declared a Franco-German year. As part of this, from September 2012 to July 2013 numerous events took place at the official and civil society level.

On the 50th anniversary of the signing of the contract, i.e. on January 22, 2013, the French government , the President ( François Hollande ) and the Senate came to Berlin for celebrations. The members of both parliaments (German Bundestag and National Assembly ) also shared a reminder of the historic event; all 577 members of the National Assembly were invited to Berlin. On 31 January 2013, the organized bar of the Euro Corps in Strasbourg a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty, and on July 14 the National Day of France took the Air Force for the first time on "Flypass" over Paris part.

Follow-up contract

56 years after the signing of the Élysée Treaty, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron signed a new Franco-German friendship treaty on January 22, 2019 in the coronation hall of Aachen city hall.

The document, known as the “Treaty of Aachen”, primarily agreed on stronger cooperation in European policy and in foreign and security policy.

See also

literature

  • Ansbert Baumann : Meeting of Nations? The Élysée Treaty and the Federal Republic of Germany. Franco-German cultural policy from 1963 to 1969 (= Modern History and Politics 18). Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2003, ISBN 3-631-50539-6 (also: Diss., University of Tübingen , 2001).
  • Ansbert Baumann: The organized collaboration. Franco-German relations on the eve of the Élysée Treaty (1958–1962). DFI compact, 1 ISSN  1619-8441 . German-French Institute , Ludwigsburg 2002.
  • Nicole Colin, Corine Defrance , Ulrich Pfeil , Joachim Umlauf (eds.): Lexicon of Franco-German cultural relations after 1945 , Tübingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8233-6693-5 .
  • Corine Defrance, Ulrich Pfeil (ed.): The Élysée Treaty and Franco-German relations 1945–1963–2003 (= Paris historical studies 71). Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-486-57678-X , online perspectivia.net.
  • Corine Defrance, Ulrich Pfeil: German-French history. Volume 10: A post-war history in Europe: 1945 to 1963. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft , Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-534-14708-3 .
  • Corine Defrance, Ulrich Pfeil (eds.): La France, l'Allemagne et le traité de l'Élysée, 1963–2013 , Paris 2012, ISBN 978-2-271-07488-1 .
  • Corine Defrance, Ulrich Pfeil: 50 Years of the German-French Youth Office / L'Office franco-allemand pour la jeunesse a 50 ans , ed. from DFJW, Berlin, Paris 2013, ISBN 978-2-36924-000-6 .
  • Documents-Documents. Magazine for the Franco-German dialogue - Revue du dialogue franco-allemand. Special Issues : 50 Years of the Élysée Contract. Bilingual (main article in one of the two languages, a summary in the other). Ed. Society for Supranational Cooperation GÜZ. Verlag Documents, Bonn 2012, Issues 2 to 4 ISSN  0012-5172
  • Ulrich Lappenküper: German-French interactions. Entente élémentaire. The history of the Franco-German friendship treaty of January 22, 1963. Lecture on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the signature of the EV on January 22, 2003. DVA Foundation , Stuttgart 2003 (not available in stores).
  • Ulrich Lappenküper: German-French relations 1949–1963. From “hereditary enmity” to “Entente élémentaire” (= sources and representations on contemporary history 49). 2 volumes. Oldenbourg, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-486-56522-2 (also: Bonn, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1998).
  • Ulrich Pfeil: The GDR and the Élysée Treaty of January 22, 1963 , in: Heiner Timmermann (Ed.): The GDR in Germany. A look back at 50 years (= documents and writings of the European Academy Otzenhausen 93), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-10418-8 , pp. 91-106.
  • Ulrich Pfeil: The “other” Franco-German relations. The GDR and France 1949–1990 (= Contemporary History Studies of the Center for Contemporary History Research Potsdam. Vol. 26), Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-412-04403-2 .
  • Gilbert Ziebura : German-French relations since 1945. Myths and realities. Revised and updated new edition. Neske Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-7885-0511-7 .

Web links

Commons : Élysée Treaty  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Élysée Treaty  - Sources and full texts

Videos for the anniversaries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ text of the Treaty konrad-adenauer.de (without the upstream Joint Declaration)
  2. ↑ Facsimile of the contract in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (with the joint declaration)
  3. ↑ Example: Facsimile of the contract (beginning of the contract text)
  4. ↑ Example: Website of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation
  5. ↑ 2 € coin at Muenzen.eu
  6. ^ Ansbert Baumann: The organized cooperation, pp. 50–57.
  7. ^ Gero von Randow: 50 Years of the Élysée Treaty: A means of pressure against the Americans . In: The time . January 24, 2013, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed January 22, 2019]).
  8. ↑ Michael Marek: Elysee - A treaty for friendship , Deutsche Welle . January 22, 2013. Retrieved April 9, 2018. 
  9. ↑ a b 50 years of the Elysée contract , Spiegel Online. January 15, 2013. 
  10. ↑ Alain Peyrefitte: C'était de Gaulle - Tome II, p. 270
  11. ^ Alain Peyrefitte: C'était de Gaulle - Tome II, pp. 303-305
  12. ↑ Gero von Randow: 50 years of the Élysée contract: "Like pigs!" In: The time . January 24, 2013, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed January 22, 2019]).
  13. ^ Joint declaration on the 40th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty france-allemagne.fr
  14. ↑ Franco-German Day france-allemagne.fr
  15. ^ "Treaty of Aachen": Merkel and Macron seal a new friendship treaty. January 21, 2019, accessed January 22, 2019 .