France, Germany to sign socio-economic deal

French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel will sign a treaty in Aachen in Germany on Tuesday, 56 years after the two countries’ deal inked back in 1963 focusing on reconciliation, reports UNB.

While the first treaty was about reconciliation, the new one focuses on convergence, on bringing closer their socio-economic models and on joint positions in the international fora, in the context of the European integration.

The representatives of the European Union institutions will also be present, according to a joint press statement of the embassies of France and Germany in Dhaka.

In addition to the treaty between the two governments, an agreement will be signed between the Bundestag, the German parliament, and the Assemblee Nationale, the French parliament, creating a 100 members strong French-German Parliamentary Assembly.

In a volatile international and European context, France and Germany recall, in the solemn form of a treaty between the two States, their shared commitment to values as the rule of law and multilateralism as well as their joint responsibility to build a sovereign and united Europe.

On 22 January 1963, France’s president, the General de Gaulle, and Germany’s chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, signed in Paris the Elysee Treaty on cooperation between the two countries that marked the beginning of an era of friendship and cooperation between Germany and France after more than a century of tensions and wars, which led to the 20th century’s two world wars that involved so many countries and provoked millions of casualties.

It took the great leadership of both Heads of State and Government to create the conditions of the reconciliation and cooperation 18 years after the end of the war, said the statement.