TheWeimar Triangle (French:Triangle de Weimar;German:Weimarer Dreieck;Polish:Trójkąt Weimarski) is a regional alliance ofFrance,Germany, andPoland created in 1991 in the German city ofWeimar. 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 ofsummit 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.
The Weimar Triangle was established in the German city ofWeimar in 1991, aimed at assisting Poland's emergence fromCommunist rule. Attending the meeting were the Foreign Ministers of each state:Roland Dumas of France,Hans-Dietrich Genscher of Germany, andKrzysztof 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 theWestern European Union, the European arm ofNATO.[6]
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.
At the 2011 summit hosted by PresidentBronisław Komorowski of Poland and attended by PresidentNicolas Sarkozy (France) and ChancellorAngela 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 thePact 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 theWeimar 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 thereferendum on the status ofCrimea held on 16 March 2014, the chairpersons of the Weimar Triangle parliament's committees on foreign affairs –Elisabeth Guigou ofFrance,Norbert Röttgen ofGermany andGrzegorz Schetyna ofPoland – visited Kyiv to express their countries’ firm support of the territorial integrity and the European integration ofUkraine.[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 ministerWitold Waszczykowski told daily newspaperGazeta Wyborcza that the Weimar Triangle had lost its relevance for his country.[10]
On 8 February 2022, PresidentsEmmanuel Macron,Andrzej Duda and ChancellorOlaf Scholz met in Berlin to discuss security cooperation in the face of the ongoingRusso-Ukrainian crisis. This was the first such trilateral meeting between the three heads of state or government in many years, and was seen as a step towards strengthening the Weimar Triangle format. At the meeting, Duda appealed for unity among European leaders saying that "We must show that we speak in one voice". Scholz stressed that any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty andterritorial 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] On 24 February the full-scaleRussian invasion of Ukraine began.
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 theRussian 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 theEuropean Union and theNATO alliance.[14]
On 27 June 2023, the German Minister of FinanceChristian Lindner convened the first meeting of the finance ministers since 2017. The invasion of Ukraine was the reason for the revived interest in this format. Lindner,Bruno Le Maire andMagdalena Rzeczkowska discussed the union of their capital markets.[15]
As theFall of Avdiivka culminated,[16] at the meeting of Weimar Triangle heads in Berlin on 12 February 2024 Polish Prime MinisterDonald Tusk hinted that his country might join theEuropean Sky Shield Initiative project headed by Germany, notable especially in the wake of comments on the future ofNATO by American presidential candidate Donald Trump.[17] The foreign ministers, who also met that day inLa 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]
On 7 November 2024, the leaders of the Weimar Triangle issued a joint statement expressing concern over the2024 Georgian parliamentary election calling for "swift and transparent investigations of all complaints and reports of election-related irregularities"[22] and the reversal of the Russian-inspired legislation.[23] On 31 December 2024, the Weimar Triangle foreign ministers made another statement about theoverall political crisis, adding their concern about "violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders" and "[t]he political course of repression anddemocratic backsliding by theGeorgian Dream" and stating that they were "determin[ed] to support the democratic and European aspirations of the Georgian people".[24]
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.
Lucien Calvié, « L’Ukraine et le Triangle de Weimar : les révolutions, Danton, Büchner et Wajda »,Revue Française d'Histoire des Idées Politiques, nº60(2), 2024, p. 217-232 ([1]).
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