The Weimar Triangle (French: Triangle de Weimar; German: Weimarer Dreieck; Polish: Trójkąt Weimarski) is a regional alliance of France, Germany, and Poland created in 1991 in the German city of Weimar. The group is intended to promote co-operation between the three countries in cross-border and European issues.[3]
It exists mostly in the form of summit meetings between the leaders of the three countries, and of their foreign ministers. The collaboration between member states includes inter-parliamentary contacts and military, scientific, and cultural cooperation.
History
1990s
The Weimar Triangle was established in the German city of Weimar in 1991, aimed at assisting Poland's emergence from Communist rule. Attending the meeting were the Foreign Ministers of each state: Roland Dumas of France, Hans-Dietrich Genscher of Germany, and Krzysztof Skubiszewski of Poland.[4][5] Genscher chose Weimar for the inaugural meeting because it was situated in former East Germany.[6]
At the 1992 meeting of the Weimar Triangle in France, Poland won agreement from Germany and France that it should have special association status at the Western European Union, the European arm of NATO.[6]
2000s
Apart from regular meetings of ministers of foreign affairs and occasional summits of the countries' leaders, no major changes or decisions were made in the first decade of the twenty-first century in the Weimar Triangle.
2010s
At the 2011 summit hosted by President Bronisław Komorowski of Poland and attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy (France) and Chancellor Angela Merkel (Germany), the three leaders discussed issues of renewing regular Weimar Triangle meetings and improving relations with Russia (among other topics). Both Germany and France urged Poland to join the Pact for Competitiveness.[7]
On 5 July 2011, France, Germany, and Poland signed an agreement in Brussels to put together a unit of 1,700 soldiers under Polish command, called the Weimar Battlegroup, that was to be ready to deploy in crisis zones starting in 2013. The operational command centre was to be based in Mont Valerien, located in a Paris suburb.[3]
Shortly after the referendum on the status of Crimea held on 16 March 2014, the chairpersons of the Weimar Triangle parliament's committees on foreign affairs – Elisabeth Guigou of France, Norbert Röttgen of Germany and Grzegorz Schetyna of Poland – visited Kyiv to express their countries’ firm support of the territorial integrity and the European integration of Ukraine.[8] This was the first time that parliamentarians of the Weimar Triangle had ever made a joint trip to a third country.[9]
In April 2016, Poland's foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski told daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza that the Weimar Triangle had lost its relevance for his country.[10]
On 8 February 2022, the meeting between Presidents Emmanuel Macron, Andrzej Duda and Chancellor Olaf Scholz took place in Berlin to discuss security cooperation in the face of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian crisis. This was the first such trilateral meeting between the three heads of states in many years (although this is technically false, since Scholz is not in fact Germany's head of state), and was seen as a step towards strengthening the Weimar Triangle format. At a joint press conference President Duda appealed for unity among European leaders saying that "We must show that we speak in one voice". The German Chancellor stressed that any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity was "unacceptable" and would have "far-reaching consequences for Russia in political, economic and geo-strategic dimensions" while President Macron reinforced France's determination to use diplomatic efforts which he said were "the only path to end the conflict around Ukraine."[12] Unfortunately on 24 February Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine.
On 12 June 2023, the leaders of the Weimar Triangle, Scholz, Macron and Duda met at the group's summit held in Paris to discuss a number of foreign policy issues the most important of which was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The leaders reaffirmed their "unwavering support" for Ukraine and declared to assist the country in its defence efforts against Russia’s aggression politically, with humanitarian aid, financially and also by supplying arms.[13] Among the topics discussed was also Ukraine’s future membership in the European Union and the NATO alliance.[14]
On 27 June 2023, the German Minister of Finance Christian Lindner remarked in Berlin that today was the first meeting in that format of financiers since 2017. The invasion of Ukraine was the reason for the revived interest in this format. Lindner, Bruno Le Maire and Magdalena Rzeczkowska discussed the union of their capital markets.[15]
As the Fall of Avdiivka culminated,[16] at the meeting of Weimar Triangle heads in Berlin on 12 February 2024 Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk hinted that his country might join the European Sky Shield Initiative project headed by Germany, notable especially in the wake of unsettling comments on the future of NATO by an American presidential candidate.[17] The foreign ministers, who also met that day in La Celle-Saint-Cloud,[18] called amongst other things for a "Weimar of citizens", a "Weimar of youth", a "Weimar of excellence" and a "Weimar of culture".[19]
On 15 March 2024, a summit of Weimar Triangle was held in Berlin with Macron, Scholz and Tusk in attendance. The leaders stressed that they remained united over their stance on Europe's response to Russia's war in Ukraine. The leaders also announced a "capacity coalition" to provide long-distance artillery to Ukraine would be established, while declaring to "never prompt escalation" there. Chancellor Scholz stated that the three countries wanted to make sure that Ukraine could be capable of defending itself against Russia's invasion.[16] Other journalists were keen to quote Scholz as having said at the "hastily arranged summit" that a "coalition for long-range rocket artillery" was then formed and that "starting immediately, we will procure even more weapons for Ukraine, on the overall world market."[20] Another journalist was surprised that the leaders did not take questions from the press.[21]
7 May 1999 in Nancy, France: Gerhard Schröder, Jacques Chirac, Aleksander Kwaśniewski
27 February 2001 in Hambach, Germany: Gerhard Schröder, Jacques Chirac, Aleksander Kwaśniewski
9 May 2003 in Wrocław, Poland (held a few days before the referendum on the entry of Poland in the European Union): Gerhard Schröder, Jacques Chirac, Aleksander Kwaśniewski
19 May 2005 in Nancy, France: Gerhard Schröder, Jacques Chirac, Aleksander Kwaśniewski[35]
Kończal, Kornelia (2020), An Inspiring and Intimidating Relationship: Franco-German Cooperation from the Polish Perspective, in: Nicole Colin und Claire Demesmay (ed.): Franco-German Relations Seen from Abroad: Post-war Reconciliation in International Perspectives, Cham, Springer, p. 69–89.
Kończal, Kornelia (2023), Über den Tellerrand: Dritte in den deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen, in: Osteuropa, No. 1–2, p. 97–122.
