Posted on 07/09/2012 1:16:35 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The leaders of France and Germany joined in a symbolic celebration of unity on Sunday (8 July), hailing a relationship that has brought peace to Europe for 50 years. French President François Hollande underlined that the proposed banking union is the “first step to a budgetary union, which will open the way to stability, growth, and tighter ties.”
Taking a pause from more than two years of constant crisis management that has strained Franco-German ties, President François Hollande welcomed his German counterpart, Chancellor Angela Merkel, to the city of Reims in eastern France.
Hollande said France and Germany must defend the euro with “strict rules and powerful instruments.”
The event replicated an encounter in 1962 between former French president Charles de Gaulle and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, when the two leaders enshrined Franco-German ties in a city that once bore the brunt of shelling in World War One.
But while De Gaulle and Adenauer's encounter sealed a reconciliation after two wars, Sunday's meeting was held against a backdrop of acrimony over how to handle Europe's debt crisis. …
Underneath the sense of elation about the past, anxiety over the present ran high as the eurozone—the crowning legacy of Franco-German entente—struggles to restore confidence in the creditworthiness of its peripheral members. …
(Excerpt) Read more at euractiv.com ...
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