> Guy Verhofstadt: 60 years ago Germany and France signed the Elysée treaty. Time to restart the tandem to bring Europe to the next level : with one diplomatic voice and no unanimity handicap, with a defence union and strong cooperation where EU strategic autonomy demands it
*Just two months after the signing of the Elysée 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 United States, United Kingdom, NATO, or the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).[9]*
*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 United States; the eventual admission of the United Kingdom to the EEC; 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.[10] This effectively emptied the Treaty of any sense (in Gaullist understanding) and put end to General de Gaulle’s hopes of building the EEC into a counterweight to the US and the USSR. “They are putting themselves completely at the Americans’ service. They’re betraying the spirit of the Franco-German Treaty. And they’re betraying Europe.”[11] Later, in 1965, the General told his closest aides behind closed doors: “The Germans had been my greatest hope; they are my greatest disappointment.”[12]*
Anything to prevent them going to war every 30 years! But what we have today with the EU has become way too big, the countries are just too different!
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> Guy Verhofstadt: 60 years ago Germany and France signed the Elysée treaty. Time to restart the tandem to bring Europe to the next level : with one diplomatic voice and no unanimity handicap, with a defence union and strong cooperation where EU strategic autonomy demands it
https://twitter.com/guyverhofstadt/status/1617171790530490368
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*Just two months after the signing of the Elysée 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 United States, United Kingdom, NATO, or the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).[9]*
*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 United States; the eventual admission of the United Kingdom to the EEC; 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.[10] This effectively emptied the Treaty of any sense (in Gaullist understanding) and put end to General de Gaulle’s hopes of building the EEC into a counterweight to the US and the USSR. “They are putting themselves completely at the Americans’ service. They’re betraying the spirit of the Franco-German Treaty. And they’re betraying Europe.”[11] Later, in 1965, the General told his closest aides behind closed doors: “The Germans had been my greatest hope; they are my greatest disappointment.”[12]*
Anything to prevent them going to war every 30 years! But what we have today with the EU has become way too big, the countries are just too different!