London and Paris Conferences

The London and Paris Conferences were two related conferences held in London and Paris during September–October 1954 to determine the status of West Germany. The talks concluded with the signing of the Paris Agreements (Paris Pacts, or Paris Accords[1]), which granted West Germany full sovereignty, ended the occupation, and allowed its admittance to NATO.[1] Furthermore, both West Germany and Italy joined the Brussels Treaty[1] on 23 October 1954.[2] The Agreements went into force on 5 May 1955.[2] The participating powers included France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, West Germany, Italy, Canada, the United States, and remaining NATO members.[1]

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Prelude

Since the end of World War II, West Germany had been occupied by Allied forces and lacked its own means of defense. On 23 July 1952, the European Coal and Steel Community came into existence, bonding the member states economically. By 1951, fear of possible Soviet aggression in Europe led to preparation of an ill-fated European Defense Community (EDC). EDC was a proposed joint Western European military force, at the time favored over admitting Germany to NATO. The General Treaty (German: Deutschlandvertrag) of 1952 formally named the EDC as a prerequisite of the end of Allied occupation of Germany. EDC was, however, rejected by the French National Assembly on August 30, 1954, and a new solution became necessary.[2]

London

At the London Conference, often called the Nine-Power Conference (not to be confused with the Nine Power Treaty), it was agreed that the occupying powers would make every effort to end the occupation.[3] The limits of German re-armament were also very important especially to France, which was still concerned with a powerful Germany.

Belgium was represented by Paul-Henri Spaak, Canada by Lester B. Pearson, France by Pierre Mendès-France, Germany by Konrad Adenauer, Italy by Gaetano Martino, Luxembourg by Joseph Bech, the Netherlands by Jan Willem Beyen, the United Kingdom by Anthony Eden, and the United States by John Foster Dulles.

Paris

The powers met again in Paris on October 20–23, in an intergovernmental conference followed by a NATO Council meeting, to put the decisions reached in London into formal declarations and protocols to existing treaties.[1] "Protocol No. I Modifying and Completing the Brussels Treaty" formally added West Germany and Italy to the Brussels Treaty, creating the Western European Union (WEU), which, while not as broad or powerful as the previously proposed EDC, nevertheless was sufficient for the Deutschlandvertrag to come into force and therefore to end the occupation of West Germany and admit it as an ally in the Cold War.

Altogether there were as many as twelve international agreements signed in Paris.[2] the Bonn–Paris conventions ended the occupation of West Germany and West Germany obtained "the full authority of a sovereign state" on 5 May 1955 (although "full sovereignty" was not obtained until the Two Plus Four Agreement in 1990).[lower-alpha 1] The treaty allowed Allied troops to remain in the country.

An agreement expanded the Brussels Treaty of 1948 to include West Germany and Italy, creating the Western European Union. This agreement allowed West Germany to start a limited rearmament program though it banned development of certain weapons, such as large warships. It was signed by the Brussels Treaty countries (Belgium, France, Great Britain, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) and by West Germany and Italy.

Another accord accepted West Germany into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).[1]

The negotiations on Saar status, only between France and West Germany, were held on the night before the conference, on 19 October.[1] The territory had been essentially annexed by France and a referendum was set up to determine the will of its people (the outcome was that Saarland rejoined West Germany in 1956-1957). On 27 October 1956 the Saar Treaty officially made Saarland a state of the Federal Republic of Germany.

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See also

Since the end of World War II, sovereign European countries have entered into treaties and thereby co-operated and harmonised policies (or pooled sovereignty) in an increasing number of areas, in the so-called European integration project or the construction of Europe (French: la construction européenne). The following timeline outlines the legal inception of the European Union (EU) ― the principal framework for this unification. The EU inherited many of its present responsibilities from, and the membership of the European Communities (EC), which were founded in the 1950s in the spirit of the Schuman Declaration.

Legend:
  S: signing
  F: entry into force
  T: termination
  E: expiry
    de facto supersession
  Rel. w/ EC/EU framework:
   de facto inside
   outside		                     European Union (EU) [Cont.]  
European Communities (EC)  
European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) [Cont.]      
/ / / European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)    
    European Economic Community (EEC)   European Community (EC)
            Schengen Rules
  North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) [Cont.]     Terrorism, Radicalism, Extremism and Violence Internationally (TREVI) Justice and Home Affairs (JHA)  
Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCC)

Anglo-French alliance		 [Defence org. handed to NATO] European Political Co-operation (EPC) Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP)
Western Union (WU) / Western European Union (WEU) [Tasks handed to EU]  
     
[Social, cultural tasks handed to CoE]   [Cont.]              
    Council of Europe (CoE)
Dunkirk Treaty¹
S: 4 March 1947
F: 8 September 1947
E: 8 September 1997
Brussels Treaty¹
S: 17 March 1948
F: 25 August 1948
T: 30 June 2011
London and Washington treaties¹
S: 5 May/4 April 1949
F: 3 August/24 August 1949
Paris treaties: ECSC and EDC
S: 18 April 1951/27 May 1952
F: 23 July 1952/―
E: 23 July 2002/―
Rome treaties: EEC² and EAEC
S: 25 March 1957
F: 1 January 1958
WEU-CoE agreement¹
S: 21 October 1959
F: 1 January 1960
Brussels (Merger) Treaty³
S: 8 April 1965
F: 1 July 1967
Davignon report
S: 27 October 1970
Single European Act (SEA)
S: 17/28 February 1986
F: 1 July 1987
Schengen Treaty and Convention
S: 14 June 1985/19 June 1990
F: 26 March 1995
Maastricht Treaty², ⁴
S: 7 February 1992
F: 1 November 1993
Amsterdam Treaty
S: 2 October 1997
F: 1 May 1999
Nice Treaty
S: 26 February 2001
F: 1 February 2003
Lisbon Treaty⁵
S: 13 December 2007
F: 1 December 2009
¹Although not EU treaties per se, these treaties affected the development of the EU defence arm, a main part of the CFSP. The Franco-British alliance established by the Dunkirk Treaty was de facto superseded by WU. The CFSP pillar was bolstered by some of the security structures that had been established within the remit of the 1955 Modified Brussels Treaty (MBT). The Brussels Treaty was terminated in 2011, consequently dissolving the WEU, as the mutual defence clause that the Lisbon Treaty provided for EU was considered to render the WEU superfluous. The EU thus de facto superseded the WEU.
²The treaties of Maastricht and Rome form the EU's legal basis, and are also referred to as the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), respectively. They are amended by secondary treaties.
³The European Communities obtained common institutions and a shared legal personality (i.e. ability to e.g. sign treaties in their own right).
⁴Between the EU's founding in 1993 and consolidation in 2009, the union consisted of three pillars, the first of which were the European Communities. The other two pillars consisted of additional areas of cooperation that had been added to the EU's remit.
⁵The consolidation meant that the EU inherited the European Communities' legal personality and that the pillar system was abolished, resulting in the EU framework as such covering all policy areas. Executive/legislative power in each area was instead determined by a distribution of competencies between EU institutions and member states. This distribution, as well as treaty provisions for policy areas in which unanimity is required and qualified majority voting is possible, reflects the depth of EU integration as well as the EU's partly supranational and partly intergovernmental nature.


References
  1. Detlef Junker of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg states "In the October 23, 1954, Paris Agreements, Adenauer pushed through the following laconic wording: 'The Federal Republic shall accordingly [after termination of the occupation regime] have the full authority of a sovereign state over its internal and external affairs.' If this was intended as a statement of fact, it must be conceded that it was partly fiction and, if interpreted as wishful thinking, it was a promise that went unfulfilled until 1990. The Allies maintained their rights and responsibilities regarding Berlin and Germany as a whole, particularly the responsibility for future reunification and a future peace treaty".[4]
  1. Sutton, Michael (2011-03-18). France and the Construction of Europe, 1944-2007: The Geopolitical Imperative. pp. 74–76. ISBN 9780857452900.
  2. Haftendorn, Helga (2006-02-28). Coming of Age: German Foreign Policy Since 1945. pp. 30–32. ISBN 9780742538764.
  3. Critchfield, James H (2003). Partners at the Creation: The Men Behind Postwar Germany's Defense and Intelligence Establishments. pp. 177–178. ISBN 9781591141365.
  4. Detlef Junker (editor), Translated by Sally E. Robertson, The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, A Handbook Volume 1, 1945–1968 Series: Publications of the German Historical Institute ISBN 0-511-19218-5. See Section "THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST" paragraph 9.
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