Germany and France are committed to expanding majority voting in the EU. In a joint guest contribution to the Franco-German Council of Ministers tomorrow, Sunday, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz and France’s President Emmanuel Macron write that they are striving for “rapid and concrete progress in the EU expansion process”.
At the same time, however, it must be ensured that an enlarged EU remains capable of acting, they stressed. This requires more efficient institutions and faster decision-making processes, “especially through the expansion of qualified majority decisions in the Council”.
In the guest post for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and The Sunday Diary Both also emphasize, alluding to US subsidies for climate-friendly technologies, that Germany and France are “strongly committed to an ambitious strategy to promote the competitiveness of European industry and a European environment”. Most recently, there had been differences between Berlin and Paris on how to respond to new US regulations, which are seen as disadvantageous to EU companies.
This should also be an issue during the consultations on Sunday. The cabinets of both countries and the leaders of the two national parliaments will then meet in Paris on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty.
friendship contract
The friendship treaty forms the basis of the very close post-war relations between the two countries. “France reached out to the Germans for reconciliation. A historic gesture. And now – 60 years later – we can say: The original peace project is complete. Germany and France are friends and close partners,” said Scholz in his video podcast.
Minister of State for Europe Anna Lührmann had opposite Archyde.com also emphasized that they want to jointly reduce vetoes in the EU, develop ideas for reform and press ahead with enlargement. Lührmann acknowledged a difficult phase between Berlin and Paris: “In the past few months, things have occasionally crunched, but one thing is clear: Franco-German friendship is part of our political identity.”
