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in the european union there are two countries that occupy a special place the german chancellor and french president well the leaders of france and germany leaders of france germany russia and ukraine the french and german leaders are meeting in paris trying yet again to contain the debt crisis it's the story of reconciliation after three wars over the course of seventy years of awkward photo ops and heavy symbolism and compromises and competing visions that have shaped the european union it's a source of frustration at the eu's unofficial leadership so what is the french german partnership and does it really lead europe to understand this relationship we have to go back to the end of the second world war germany looked like this there were four occupation zones splitting the country in its capital two countries and coal rich starland a french protectorate under american pressure which was afraid germany would fall to communism france which considered annexing siren for its coal opted instead at reconciliation it made an offer to west germany to pool its own rich iron resources with german coal italy the netherlands belgium and luxembourg student joined to found the european coal and steel community world interest focuses on the kdosa as six european nations including western germany meet for their first working session on the schumann plan for pooling steel and coal in doing so france hoped war would not only be unthinkable but materially impossible it marked the first step towards the european union but also turned a rivalry that had defined europe into a partnership ten years later france and germany signed the mostly symbolic elysee treaty which would promote closer ties to cultural exchange programs and regular bilateral meetings it's around this relationship between two radically different countries that the early european union would be built on one side a centralized partially agricultural and protectionist france who saw itself as a great power and wanted to assert its independence from both the us and the soviet union and on the other a federal industrial and trading western germany who sought a close relationship with the united states while keeping an open relationship with soviet republics and the soviet union if you look at any of these big kind of division fault lines within the year around cooperation you tend to find that france and germany come out on different sides and so what that means is if you can get those two to agree then you've got the basis of a compromise within the eu a certain number of key eu policies find their origin in french or german interests like the common agriculture policy the euro or the single market but it was an unbalanced relationship well france is a nuclear power and has a seat in the u.n security council germany was an economic powerhouse but whose sovereignty was limited through its occupation and division and it's a status quo that rather satisfied france who then assumed that eu's unofficial leadership french nobel prize winner for literature pia moriak summarized the situation by writing i love germany so much that i'm happy there too but then there was this that the wall has suddenly become irrelevant the fall of the berlin wall and of the soviet union two years later led to the reunification of germany and the withdrawal of french troops overnight germany's population jumped from 63 to 80 million and it would open new economic opportunities this would change the dynamic of the partnership and it would evolve in germany's favor long-term economic trends saw france de-industrialized faster while german economic reforms in the early 2000s allowed it to stay competitive these were compounded by the effects of deepening economic integration which broke down trade barriers and increased french dependency on german imports and with eu enlargement in the 2000s to countries where german not french was taught as a second language the geographic and political center of the eu shifted towards germany in an eu that focused first and foremost on economic affairs germany became the number one country and france was relegated to second place but with german reluctance at leadership and french weakness eu decision-making was paralyzed for nearly a decade there's actually been a certain level of disappointment um from the um from the french side that germany isn't driving that forward with france at the same time the weight of the two countries decreased in 1957 they made up 62 percent of the eu's population versus 33 percent today and the leadership of france and germany has been challenged by the eu's newest members who see it not as a tool to find compromises but instead as a form of hegemony over european institutions so how much influence do france and germany actually have when we look at french german influence we can broadly divide it into three categories the first is legacy influence as founding members germany and france have been able to shape the eu's laws and its policies to their benefit which candidate countries have to adopt then their size france and germany are simply large countries whether it be in terms of population defense spending or economy where they account for 41 of gdp and even 54 if we look at the eurozone under the eu's qualified majority voting rules the two countries almost possess a blocking minority and then there is agenda setting since 2003 joint cabinet meetings between french and german ministers allow for agenda setting and choosing eu priorities this translates into a certain amount of privileges like the fact that french and german are official languages of the european commission a certain amount of flexibility with eu rules or the selection of the eu's leadership with some unfortunate consequences for the eu and you can also see that in the types of figures that berlin and paris allow to go into those leadership roles there's never any kind of real competition to sort of who the figureheads of the eu on the global stage are but even more than these three aspects france and germany have influenced the eu through their vision of either a block open on the world and ready to trade or one that is sovereign and able to chart its own course germany's vandal dorsando policy sought push for trade agreements as a diplomatic tool to change authoritarian regimes while francis pursued its own notion of strategic autonomy through the european union but this influence also means the two countries also pursue a vision not entirely in line with the rest of the eu for most member states uh the and and on most different files the way of protecting the national interest is often through the eu system there is a kind of an economies of scale argument for pooling resources at the european level in order to be able to compete in a world of continent-sized powers the challenge for france and germany is that the logic of that argument becomes slightly less the bigger a power you are on any given field in your own right to counterbalance their influence other countries have formed coalitions with superhero sounding names like the new hanseatic league the frugal four or the visigrad group frances also looked for alternatives like with the united kingdom when it was still part of the eu or the formalization of its partnership with italy through the kirinal treaty but these alternatives have not been a framework for resolving the eu's problems the center of crisis resolution has been france and germany albeit with mixed results in the financial crisis the stability pack kept the eurozone together but also pushed austerity on southern europe the 2014 minsk agreement only delayed russia from invading ukraine and no collective european solution was found for the migration crisis while the covet 19 pandemic saw the eu issue common debt and put in place a 750 billion euro recovery package but the eu's latest crisis has revealed deep flaws in both france and germany's views and visions of the world in terms of trade relationship or great power politics russia has invaded targeted ukraine french president matthew mccall german chancellor philip schultz spent about 75 minutes on the phone with vladimir putin today while they continued to advocate for dialogue with russia the baltics and poland which were correct in their assessment of an expansionist russia have had their vision and worldview validated and have taken a lead in pushing for sanctions aid and weapon deliveries france and germany which have implemented sanctions have been criticized for their slow approach and attempts to pursue diplomacy and are now forced to reconsider their entire worldview whereas france's skepticism about american reliability has been put into question and this reveals the truly multipolar nature of the eu's leadership as a block driven not by countries but by visions but that's not to say the french german partnership will disappear in a block governed by coalitions of countries partnerships particularly between the eu's largest countries remain key and in 2019 france and germany signed the achen treaty a mostly symbolic document continuing their commitment to the partnership and reconciliation and when we consider the current agenda of reform for the european union that relationship which remains an important form for dialogue decision and compromise will have an important role to play but there maybe even more than before other european countries will have a greater say