berlin brief

May 9th, 1950 was a revolutionary day for Europe. 60 years ago, the then French Foreign Minister Rober Schuman with a visionary speech in Paris laid the foundations for the peaceful re-unification of the European continent devastated by two wars. Across the European Union, the first week of May is celebrated every year as “European week”.

In 2010, the 60th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration collides with one of the most severe crises in the history of the  European Union. Tomorrow, on the eve of May 9th, European leaders will gather in Brussels to take stock of this week’s events: the billion euro bailout package agreed for Greece, the riots and dead in Athens, and a growing uncertainty about the future of the single currency.

On this day, the berlinbrief recalls the courageous plan of the Union’s founding fathers.

Here is the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 in full length: (more…)

The Federal Government is apparently worried about an “Eastern bloc” that has emerged in the European Union and that has an increasingly “anti-integrationist” stance.

That is why the Federal Government is trying to re-activate the “Weimar Triangle” these days.

The German-Franco-Polish triangle, established in the 1990s to facilitate Poland’s accession into the European Union, was hardly visible over the last years.

On 1 February 2010, Minister of State Werner Hoyer met his counterparts Pierre Lellouche and Mikołaj Dowgielewicz in Warsaw.

The initiative goes along with new Franco-German initiatives announced by Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy at a joint government meeting in Paris on 4 February 2010. Take a look at the “Agenda 2020″.

Btw, a couple of days before the French and German governments announced their ritualized list, London published a long-awaited security and defense document in which it chooses Paris as its major partner for future military co-operation (FT, 3 February 2010).