Macron and Scholz hold a summit in Paris to revive the Franco-German engine

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They will take advantage of the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Elysee Treaty to try and bury the tensions between them

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Élysée Treaty of Franco-German cooperation this Sunday in Paris. Both leaders will use the anniversary to revive the Franco-German engine of the European Union, which has been preoccupied in recent months by the lack of personal chemistry between them and the fundamental differences between Paris and Berlin on the issue of defense and energy policy.

The Elysée Treaty, signed on January 22, 1963 by German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and General Charles de Gaulle, sealed the reconciliation of France and Germany after World War II. This agreement was extended in 2019 by the Treaty of Aachen, signed by Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The annulment of the Franco-German Council of Ministers last October highlighted the bad moment that relations between Paris and Berlin were going through. Officially, the Élysée and the Foreign Office claimed planning problems for ministers and the need for more time to agree on defense and energy issues.

Macron and Scholz will try to turn the page on the tensions of the past year in Paris. It will be the first Franco-German Council of Ministers to be chaired by both. The last one held was in May 2021 via video conference, with Merkel still as chancellor.

On the eve of their meeting, Macron and Scholz, in a jointly signed press article published this Saturday by France’s Le Journal du Dimanche and Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, called for “the sovereignty” of the European Union to be protected. strengthen. Union. “We share the same ambition: that of a resilient, powerful and sovereign European Union. Even in cases where we disagree, we are more determined than ever to come up with common answers, answers that we will study with our European partners,” they stressed.

This Franco-German summit comes just three days after Macron signed a new friendship and cooperation treaty with Spain last Thursday. Sources from the Élysée Palace explained that “the fact that we are strengthening and better structuring our relations with the Spaniards obviously does not affect the way we view our relations with Berlin.”

Two days after the big protest against Macron’s claim to raise the retirement age in France from 62 to 64, young French people also demonstrated in the streets this Saturday. “Young people say no to retirement at age 64,” read their banner in the Paris march that organizers say brought together 150,000 people.

Macron wants to raise the retirement age from the current 62 to 64 in 2030, but most French people are against working two years to collect a pension. Last Thursday, more than a million citizens across the country protested against the pension reform, according to police. The unions numbered two million demonstrators on that first day. The next appointment is January 31.

Source: La Verdad

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