Brussels, 28/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - At a press conference on Friday after the Brussels Summit, French President Jacques Chirac said he was certain that France and Germany would reach a common position on various points concerning reform of the institutions. He said that he and the German Chancellor both hoped this could be expressed in a particularly ambitious way on 22 January 2003 at the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of the Elysée which would enable them to make a very powerful political declaration in order to create new synergies between the respective countries parliaments, armies, companies, associations and civil society.
Chirac highlighted the driving force of the Franco-German duo in the European project, noting that where this agreement exists things make progress. The whole course of History bears witness, he said, to this, for where this agreement exists, Europe works. Where this agreement does not exist, Europe stops. It is not any kind of desire for hegemony. It is a statement of mechanics. He added that when they occasionally forget this, they are quickly called back to order by the nature of things, and this was also the German Chancellor's view.
In a speech in Poitiers on Saturday reported in Reuters, French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin expected the Copenhagen Summit to be a success in terms of enlargement because of a sharp convergence of French and German views. He said three might be a new Rome Treaty at the end of 2003, meaning a new Treaty to found a new European area.