An understanding for the future

The adoption of the Franco-German Treaty, 50 years ago, signed by General de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer January 22, 1963, was closely related to the efforts to transform the European Economic Community into a political union. In fact, it was a part of these efforts.However, although efforts on both sides went in the same direction, the underlying sources of inspirations differed. While the French imagined the largely coveted political union as an intergovernmental superstructure for the guidance and the instrumental use of integration and community building mechanisms, as outlined in the European Economic Community – and already in the European Coal and Steel Community – the Germans instead understood the construction of this system as a model of federalism. French and German attitude with respect to the question about the future of the Community emerged quite poignantly in two models, according to which – then as now – the member-states, and not only Germany and France, outline their own European policy. The differences are linked to the geography of their country, to national cultural features and cultural relations, to specific historical experiences and collective memories, and, finally, to the imprinting given by the national constitutions, which administrate their own social and political life.Ultimately, the political bearing of the French-German Treaty doesn’t lie in the fact that the two bordering Countries, representing two explicitly different founding outlooks and convictions, undertook a pledge to carry out ongoing negotiations. In fact, the Treaty has a markedly historical significance, whereby the bearers of two different realms, representing differing perspectives, have decided to ratify their bond, critical to the establishment of the European Union. Because of their close vicinity via a long border, the two countries face each other. But France also looks toward the West and the South, and Germany also looks to the North and East, and both have ample opportunity to expand into these opposite directions due to their central position. This determines their ways of seeing things, it implies from time to time special experiences, affinities and perspectives that are consolidated in their ideals, interests and opinions. From the point of view of culture, France and Germany are competing principles, Latinity and Germanness, that have built the history of Europe over a long period of time.The historical experiences that had the greatest impact on the political views of France and Germany in the second half of the twentieth century, were once again the first experiences that the two neighbours, in previous decades and centuries, had made with one another. Experiences whereby the collective memory considered the neighbour as close competitor, an opponent or an enemy. As relates to the understanding of the role that Europe would have played in the future and on the form of community or union which in the best way could have legitimized this role, for Germany the experience of the catastrophic defeats that ended the two world wars and the moral humiliation that derived from having submitted to the totalitarian regime of National Socialism was particularly significant. This led to focus foreign policy on the need for international rehabilitation, on the need to leave the question open in the sense of German reunification and the defense of reconquered freedom and democracy from the threats of totalitarian communism and its supremacy, the Soviet Union.Contrary to the prevailing thought, France didn’t envisage granting a special role to the Republic of Germany, a leading role in foreign policy, and neither did it imagine it for itself, Europe and even less for world politics. Major emphasis was placed on domestic, economic and social policies.In the European community one could see the framework within which one day full reconstruction, rehabilitation, security and a new union would have been possible. To this were added the various experiences as the shaping of the national constitutions. For France sovereignty was represented by a centralized organization, a national undivided state. On these grounds, sharing sovereignty with all Member States or with a supranational super-state appeared hard to imagine, if not completely unconceivable.By contrast, Germany was established as a Federal Republic (Federation of German Länder) – by tradition and because of the situation linked to a new beginning after 1945 – in which sovereignty is distributed at all levels, which results in a concept of supranational statehood and sovereignty. The Franco-German Treaty formalized an agreement that was decisive for the foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community (1952) and, therefore, for the movement that led to the unification of the peoples of ‘Europe in new a common entity, inclusive and transnational.