French and Germans mark 40-year pact at heart of EU

France and Germany celebrated 40 years of official friendship yesterday with an unprecedented joint meeting of members of both national parliaments in the Palace of Versailles and a pledge to make their partnership the "centre of gravity" of the new, enlarged European Union.

The French President, Jacques Chirac, and the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, announced a series of symbolic and practical measures to allow the two former enemies to act in a range of areas ­ from economics to diplomacy to sport ­ as if they were a single state.

There was even talk of allowing, at an unspecified time, all French and German people to claim citizenship of the other country.

There have been visionary appeals from several senior politicians of both countries in recent days for France and Germany to take the plunge into a "union" of 140 million people, with one diplomatic service and one economic policy. Nothing in yesterday's announcement suggested that either country was seriously contemplating taking such a step.

However, both countries, or at least both governments, made it clear that they intended to repair and extend the Franco-German alliance that was once the cornerstone of the EU but has threatened to fall apart in recent years.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Elysée treaty signed by the former French president General Charles de Gaulle and the former German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, the governments made a formal declaration that they were ready to go to a "new stage of co-operation" and "tackle the problems of the New Europe". The choice of the chamber in the Palace of Versailles for the first joint meeting of the national parliaments was richly symbolic. It was at Versailles that the treaty ending the First World War was negotiated.

The two countries agreed to make 22 January an annual "day of Franco-German understanding"; to consider joint citizenship and joint foreign embassies; to bid jointly for international sporting competitions, such as the football World Cup; to push for a European defence and security policy; to co-ordinate economic policy; to re-brand their twice-yearly summits as "Franco-German cabinet meetings"; and to appoint a permanent secretary general for Franco-German political co-operation.

This fell short of some of the more ambitious ideas that had been forecast. Some of the ideas, such as that of joint citizenship, remained vague. President Chirac, in a speech to the assembled parliaments, said France and Germany intended to "advance hand in hand with the European adventure".

In the future, he said, he wanted the friendship to "engage the two peoples" rather than just the governments. He called for a "space of Franco-German citizenship".

The renewed determination of these governments to join forces at the heart of Europe will raise fears in Britain, and other EU countries, that the two countries intend to call the tune in the enlarged EU of 25 nations, as they once did in the six-nation European Economic Community.

In truth, even French and German officials admit that the days of Franco-German domination of European policy are, in effect, over.

The renewed alliance is partly defensive, an attempt to protect the status quo and joint interests of the two countries as much as to force their will on the rest of Europe.

Even the choice of the words in the phrase "centre of gravity" is passive rather than active.

How far the Franco-German alliance can become a union of the two peoples within the EU is open to question.

A sceptical programme on the French-German television channel Arte last night argued that this had always been an "arranged marriage" between governments, rather than a meeting of popular hearts and minds.

As one example, the teaching of the two languages in the other country has collapsed in recent years.

Only 9 per cent of French children learn German as a first foreign language and only 17.4 per cent as a second foreign language.

Only a handful of the ministers and parliamentarians taking part in yesterday's celebration could speak to each other without interpretation.