European construction according to Chancellor Schröder or the failures in the Franco-German dialogue

On April 30^th, 2001, Chancellor Schröder made a speech that marked a change in German conceptions of the future of Europe. He proposed a federal conception of the future institutional architecture of Europe, inspired from the German national structure, and associated to the re-nationalization of certain common policies (agricultural and regional policies) compensated by the fact that foreign policy be a community foreign policy and by audacious initiatives concerning interior security. Prime Minister Lionel Jospin clearly rejected this federalist vision, and opposed against it the idea of a “State-nations federation”, and the idea of renovating the community institutional triangle, on May 28^th, 2001. Improving the Franco-German relation demands that the difficulties engendered by German reunification be settled by a joint political tactics of the two partners.

 Summary AFRI-2002