The Élysée Treaty: 60 years on

It has been 60 years since the foundation of the Élysée Treaty,
which was signed on the 22 January 1963. The treaty aimed to
create close bilateral collaboration between France and Germany,
to help reconcile past conflicts between the two countries and to
allow them to emerge as one of the ‘engines’ of European
integration.

This year also marks the 20th anniversary of Bruegel’s concept as
a Think Tank. The concept was developed jointly by Nicolas Véron
and Jean Pisani-Ferry in 2003. The idea was later endorsed by
French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard
Schröder, who jointly declared that to help “contribute to
international debates on economic, financial and trade policy,
France and Germany have decided to launch a European initiative
for the creation of a centre for the international economy
devoted to those subjects.

In this episode of The Sound of the Economics, Nicolas Véron and
Jean Pisani-Ferry, two Frenchmen and founders of Bruegel, invite
their German colleague, Cornelia Woll, President of the Hertie
School, to revisit Franco-German relations from the signing of
the Élysée Treaty, discussing the importance of those relations
in European integration and how to redefine them in a modern
context.