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The French and Polish Presidents and the Chancellor were meeting to mark the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Weimar Triangle. In 1991 the foreign ministers of the three countries agreed on close practical cooperation on European issues. Today the heads of state and government have taken the Weimar Triangle into their own hands.

Speaking in Warsaw, Chancellor Angela Merkel underscored the importance of the role played by Poland in relations with the Eastern European states. Germany and France aimed to intensify cooperation between the EU and its Eastern neighbours further with the help of Poland, she said. She singled out for special praise the initiatives of the Polish government with respect to Belarus and the Ukraine.

Three countries come together

The three governments aim to expand the Franco-German and German-Polish youth work services, making a trilateral programme. They also plan to work more closely in future on training young diplomats.

The heads of government are to have their experts explore whether the Franco-German television network Arte can be extended to incorporate a Polish component.

Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy look for support for their competitiveness pact

Within the EU Poland is a good example, with its disciplined budgetary policy and a legal ceiling on the permissible level of new debt, stressed the Chancellor. The prospects of the country acceding to the planned competitiveness pact of euro zone states are thus good. "We would be delighted to have Poland on board, because it is a country that is keen to embrace reform, a country that has a tradition of consolidation," said Angela Merkel.

The background to this pact is the efforts of France and Germany to coordinate the economic and financial policy of the euro zone states more closely. Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy proposed to step up coordination on old age pensions, fiscal and wages policy at the European Council meeting held last Friday in Brussels. The competitiveness pact then agreed is to be open to all 27 EU member states.

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski stressed the importance of intensive cooperation on defence-related matters. Bronislaw Komorowski advocated further-reaching integration of security and defence policy.

In 1991 the Weimar Triangle was founded by the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland. The initiative did much to foster the process of reconciliation between Germany and Poland and to bring Poland into the EU. Since Poland acceded to the EU in 2004, the focus has been on cooperation among the three states, in their capacity as partners in the EU and in NATO.

What began life as a forum for discussion among three foreign ministers has long become a close, amicable form of cooperation at all levels. Regional twinning arrangements, youth encounters and cultural cooperation demonstrate that the Weimar Triangle is very much alive. Over the past twenty years more than 30,000 young people alone have been involved in trilateral programmes run by the two youth work bodies.

This was the seventh meeting of heads of state and government, and the first for five years. Previous meetings were held in 1998 in Poznan, in 1999 in Nancy, in 2001 in Neustadt an der Weinstraße, in 2003 in Wroclaw, in 2005 in Nancy and in 2006 in Mettlach.