Germany · Joint issue, Germany - France, 50th anniversary of the Élysée Treaty

The Élysée Treaty was concluded on 22 January 1963 at the Élysée-Palast in Paris. It marked the end of a longer rapprochement between the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and France. After several wars, the German occupation of France and the crimes of the Second World War, the former enmity was to be replaced by permanently regulated cooperation. As early as the 1950s, both states had cooperated in establishing the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community.

The treaty obliged the governments to hold regular consultations. These concerned above all foreign policy, defence, and educational and youth affairs. It therefore did not create a new European body, but institutionalised bilateral coordination. One immediate consequence was the establishment of the Franco-German Youth Office (Deutsch-Französisches Jugendwerk) in 1963. Exchange programmes, town twinning and meetings between school pupils and students were intended to anchor mutual understanding in society as well.

Konrad Adenauer was the first Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic from 1949 to 1963. His policy aimed at integrating West Germany into the Western alliances and promoting European cooperation. Charles de Gaulle, a leading representative of Free France (“Freies Frankreich”) during the Second World War, had been President of the Fifth French Republic since 1959. Both politicians shared the goal of close Franco-German cooperation, even though their views on the foreign-policy orientation of Europe did not fully coincide.

These differences became apparent during the German ratification: The Bundestag prefaced the treaty with a preamble that expressly emphasised relations with the United States, NATO and European integration. De Gaulle, by contrast, had a Europe more independent of the United States in mind.

In 2013, Germany and France issued coins with a joint design. The choice of a coordinated motif corresponded to the subject commemorated: The treaty is regarded as the basis for regular Franco-German governmental cooperation and shaped the political coordination of both states within Europe.