German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to attend the traditional Bastille Day military parade in the French capital next week amid a flurry of diplomatic activity between Paris and Berlin.<\/p>\n
Relations between the two European giants are always closely watched, and they suffered a notable blow last month with the failure of the FCAS fighter jet project, with Merz and Macron hoping to repair ties during intergovernmental consultations in Germany on Friday.<\/p>\n
Next week begins with Merz travelling to Paris on Monday for discussions with Ukraine’s partners in the format known as the Coalition of the Willing, called into existence by Macron and outgoing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in response to Washington’s foreign policy shift under US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Merz will be the first German chancellor since Angela Merkel 2019 to attend the parade on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es on Tuesday, the 10th and final one to be overseen by Macron before he steps down next year.<\/p>\n
According to the \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace, the parade is intended to illustrate “France’s strategic rearmament and Europe’s strategic awakening.”<\/p>\n
Leading the parade will be 500 soldiers from member states of the Coalition of the Willing, followed by 25 Ukrainian soldiers. Around 30 national leaders are expected to attend.<\/p>\n
Merz is then to attend a ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the catastrophic 2021 floods in western Germany on Tuesday, before hosting Macron at Bensberg Castle near Cologne on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Franco-German intergovernmental consultations take place on Friday at Augustusburg Castle in Br\u00fchl, with the FCAS debacle likely to occupy the agenda.<\/p>\n
While the countries have agreed to abandon the joint fighter jet project, they are set to continue collaboration on a Combat Cloud to link up different weapons systems.<\/p>\n
The Defence Ministries on both sides have been tasked with developing a “joint, up-to-date work plan for defence industrial cooperation,” focused on “a small number of realistic, relevant projects.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to attend the traditional Bastille Day military parade in the French capital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[61991,112,61992,230,26407,34414,235,18357,190,195,10721],"class_list":["post-127207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-bastille-day-parade","tag-berlin","tag-coalition-of-the-willing","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-european-nations","tag-federal-chancellery","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-german-chancellor","tag-germany","tag-paris","tag-prime-minister-keir-starmer"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116897100977571636","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}