Élysée Treaty

The Élysée Treaty was a treaty of friendship between France and West Germany, signed by President Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer on January 22, 1963 at the Élysée Palace in Paris. With the signing of this treaty, Germany and France established a new foundation for relations that ended centuries of rivalry between them.

The treaty called for regular consultations between France and West Germany on all important questions concerning defense, education and youth issues. It also requires regular summits between high-level officials, which implies that the Heads of State and Government have to meet at least twice a year and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs every three months, to ensure close collaboration between the two states.

The first meeting between the two heads of state took place at the private home of General de Gaulle at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises in September 1958. Since then, French and German heads of state have kept up the strong relationship, often considered as the engine of European integration (see Franco-German cooperation).

Additionally, an interministerial commission was established to coordinate and overlook the Franco-German collaboration. It consists of high-ranked officials of every involved ministry.

Just two months after the signing of the friendship treaty, a new controversy between France and Germany occurred. President de Gaulle intended the treaty to make West Germany distance itself and eventually separate itself from its American protector. He saw West Germany (and the other member states of the European Economic Community) as vassalized by Washington. The treaty was notable in that it made no mention of the US, Britain, NATO, or the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT).

However, after US President John F. Kennedy expressed his displeasure about this to the West German ambassador to the United States, the Bundestag ratified the treaty with a preamble which called on France and West Germany to pursue tight cooperation with the US, for Britain's eventual admission to the EEC, for the achievement of a free trade accord in the framework of the GATT and for the West's military integration in NATO under US leadership.

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