The Franco-German Engine and the European Union
Why is the Franco-German relationship crucial for the European integration process?
The Franco-German relationship is of crucial importance for the European integration process. There are two main reasons for that: first, it is precisely the existence of a historically complex and conflicting relationship between the two countries that led to the inception of the integration; second, following their own foreign and domestic policy interests, these two continental powers managed to coordinate and allow each major step in the integration process thus establishing themselves as the engine of the system.
However, it should not be overlooked that this relationship was robust in terms of integration outcomes because, by historical accident, there was a balance at the beginning. This is why serious changes regarding the nature of the relationship, more precisely in terms of the power differential between the two, are deemed to have endangered the integration process.
It is, therefore, necessary to evaluate the problematic aspects of the Franco-German engine today and how recent political developments may help to solve them.
The European Integration Process
The European integration project emerged after the devastation of the Second World War. Indeed, it is often considered that the primary goal was to ensure peace among the nations composing the old continent and break the cycle of ravaging wars. While such a statement does not explicitly acknowledge the importance of the relationship between France and Germany, by considering it more in-depth, one can see how the European integration process lies in the complex relationship between the two countries. To be more accurate, the longstanding German problem constituted the basis for the Franco-German rapprochement.
Modern German history has been characterized by the Deutsche Frage or the “German Problem”. We can define it as follows: since the time of German Unification, whatever Germany could have decided to do to establish itself, would have implied creating a conflict with other major powers. Even if Germany under Bismarck has been able to find a way to succeed without stepping on other great powers’ toes, subsequent leaders’ policies to fulfil German aspirations ended up in major conflicts, notably, the two World Wars. This explains why states have traditionally been concerned about dealing with Germany. At the end of the Second World War, such concern was particularly alive in neighbouring France and constituted a top priority for its foreign policy.
Before the end of the war, the Western side — France included — hoped for the implementation of the Morgenthau Plan, according to which Germany should have been deprived of any capacity to rearm and, to that end, should have been turned into an agricultural nation. Nevertheless, once the war ended and the Cold War began, such a solution was no longer an option, given Germany’s position between the Eastern and Western fronts. Consequently, a dilemma emerged: there was both a necessity to weaken Germany so as to control the Deutsche Frage and — at the same time — to strengthen it to ensure that it would not instantly collapse in a potential case of an Eastern attack.
It is in this context, and the absence of real alternatives, that France opted for a rapprochement with Germany and a consequent integration process to manage its fears regarding the recurrence of the German Problem. In 1950 French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman issued the Schuman Declaration, laying the basis for the first European institution. Finally, in 1952, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was established. France considered that the ECSC, by pooling steel and coal production — goods deemed essential to wage war — would have alleviated the German problem and, more generally, prevented another war. It must be noted that although the ECSC has primarily been a French initiative, this does not mean Germany was utterly absent during the process. While it is true that Germany, being a defeated power, could not initiate the process itself, the initiative has been welcomed by Chancellor Adenauer, who saw it as a means to materialize his own foreign policy interests too — which for West Germany at that time mainly regarded the regain of full sovereignty, as its leeway on foreign policy was severely limited by the allies’ authority.
The Franco-German Connection
Yet, the Franco-German relationship has not only been crucial for the European integration process because it set in motion the whole mechanism. Indeed, in the following years, cooperation and coordination between the two major continental powers became the engine leading to further developments in the integration process, even when the goals of the two nations diverged. While West Germany’s main foreign policy priority remained the willingness to regain sovereignty throughout the Cold War Period, France witnessed a redefinition of its foreign policy goals after de Gaulle became president in 1959. De Gaulle’s foreign policy objective was to implement a realistic politique du grandeur by establishing a solid domestic political system that could enable him to promote French global influence independently. Despite his focus on independence, however, de Gaulle did not oppose the idea of European integration and instead considered it worthwhile to carry out his politique du grandeur. He believed that the European integration process did not threaten French independence because he conceived the process in a functionalist way — not as a top-down political process — and this view privileging a bottom-up approach focusing on practical and technical issues indeed prevailed for many years. Because both countries believed the integration process was essential to achieving their own foreign policy goals, significant steps forward have been made through cooperation and coordination despite interests not always aligning.
The Franco-German relationship thus became a true engine for European integration precisely because of these two states’ ability to cooperate and coordinate. Such ability, moreover, was not contingent on the political leaders or parties dominating the period — Adenauer and de Gaulle. Indeed, the Franco-German engine continued to work afterwards. In the 1970s, German SPD Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and the French orléanist President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing managed to further deepen the process by inaugurating the European Monetary System (EMS). Once again, one can see that the coordination between Germany and France has served as an engine moving European integration forward, and the importance of this Franco-German accomplishment is even more apparent if one considers that the EMS was the first move toward the European Monetary Union and the adoption of the Euro as a common currency.
After the Cold War
The Cold War ended, and among West Germany’s top priorities was also the reunification issue. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Germans seized upon the opportunity to accomplish their objective. Chancellor Kohl soon declared his Ten-Point Plan, which signalled to the world the willingness and tantalisingly concrete possibility of reunification. The Deutsche Wiedervereinigung, however, reawakened the German Problem. For France, moreover, that would also have meant the end of the matching power, as Germany would have become more prominent again.
Yet, if one considers what has been argued at the beginning, which is, that the Franco-German rapprochement and the consequent start of European integration have been triggered by the existence of a German Problem for France, then reunification in terms of European integration simply means that “the European Union finally faced the challenge for which it was designed”. Indeed, after an initial panic phase, France reacted proactively. President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl once again — and maybe more than ever — acted as the engine of the European integration process by coordinating their divergent interests. A compromise was reached between the two, according to which Germany could reunite if Germans accepted a deeper level of integration that would have ensured Germany’s Europeanization instead of the greatly feared Germanized Europe. This solution was embodied in the Maastricht Treaty of 1991, which intensified the integration process in many different aspects, from monetary to political ones.
The Relationship in Recent Years
This, however, was the last event in the integration process, symbolizing the power of the Franco-German relationship as more recent occurrences suggest that the engine is currently flooded. Such damage, however, cannot simply be seen as the natural consequence of German reunification. Indeed, if this was a sufficient condition, the Maastricht Treaty should not have come into existence in the first place. The engine suffers because of mutually reinforcing changes in the Franco-German relationship.
France has increasingly faced domestic issues and consequently stopped pursuing its politique du grandeur. This is even more evident since the 2009 Eurozone crisis, which indeed deployed its detrimental effects on France, at least more than it did on Germany. While these may seem marginal, they exacerbated the power differential that emerged after reunification. Germany is today not only more powerful in terms of demographics but also economically and politically. The absence of a credible and committed complement to German leadership has proved particularly problematic within the European Union because it pushed Germany to take the lead in finding solutions to the issues faced by the Union countries. And this, in turn, reawakened the threat of a Germanized Europe all around the continent.
What is compelling, however, is that Germany is unwilling to impose a Germanized Europe by establishing its hegemony over the integration process. Indeed, Germans are well aware of the German Problem, and that is why they constantly seek consensus and are eager to re-establish the Franco-German engine for moving the European project forward. In this regard, recent changes in French leadership are promising. President Emmanuel Macron has made sure to emphasize and signal to Germany his commitment to the European integration process.
As the most recent example of this engine’s recovery, we can mention the agreement over a €500 billion fund to help mend the European economy devastated by the Coronavirus pandemic. President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel have jump-started the Franco-German “motor” at the heart of Europe by jointly pitching a hugely ambitious economic recovery plan, even if it faces a bumpy road ahead.
To sum up, if one considers relaunching the European integration process as a legitimate and essential objective for Europe’s future, then one must hope for the engine to start working back again, given that history has proven how no major step further can be achieved without a healthy Franco-German relationship taking the lead.
