Bonn–Paris conventions

The Bonn–Paris conventions were signed in May 1952 and came into force after the 1955 ratification. The conventions put an end to the Allied occupation of West Germany.

The delay between the signing and the ratification was due to the French failure to ratify the related treaty on the European Defense Community. This was eventually overcome by the British Prime Minister Antony Eden proposing that West Germany become a member of NATO and the removal of the references to the European Defense Community in the Bonn–Paris conventions. The revised treaty was signed at a ceremony in Paris on 23 October 1954. The conventions came into force during the last meeting of the Allied High Commission, that took place in the United States Embassy in Bonn, on 5 May 1955.

Article 1 of Schedule I of the Settlement Convention provides that the Federal Republic of Germany is accorded "the full authority of a sovereign State over its internal and external affairs”. However, Article 2 provides that the Three Powers retain their rights "relating to Berlin and to Germany as a whole, including the reunification of Germany and a peace settlement". Article 2 was designed to prevent acts undertaken by the Allies during the German occupation from being questioned retroactively by West German courts.

Miriam Aziz of The Robert Schumann Centre, of the European University Institute, makes the point that there is a difference between the wording of the Settlement Convention "the full authority of a sovereign State" and the wording in the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany of 1990 in which Germany is referred to as having "full sovereignty over its internal and external affairs", gives rise to a distinction between de facto and de jure sovereignty. Detlef Junker of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg agrees with this analysis: "In the October 23, 1954, Paris Agreements, Adenauer pushed through the following laconic wording: 'The Federal Republic shall accordingly [after termination of the occupation regime] have the full authority of a sovereign state over its internal and external affairs.' If this was intended as a statement of fact, it must be conceded that it was partly fiction and, if interpreted as wishful thinking, it was a promise that went unfulfilled until 1990. The Allies maintained their rights and responsibilities regarding Berlin and Germany as a whole, particularly the responsibility for future reunification and a future peace treaty."

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