Franco-German Relations With The European Integration Process

In today’s world with two distinctive features of economic globalization and regionalintegration, interactions and communications among nations are playing an increasinglysignificant part in regional development, especially those of major countries in importantareas on the earth. France and Germany, two influential powers in the European Union whichis the most developed part of regional integration in the world, have caused particularconcerns over the role of their interactions and communications in the development ofEuropean integration.There are inseparable ties between Franco-German relations and the integration ofEurope. To some extent, it is the Franco-German relations that dominate the development ofEuropean integration. Therefore, this paper tries to find out the role of Franco-Germanrelations in the European integration on the basis of sorting out their history after World WarII. The achievement of the study is that Franco-German relations have been playing differentroles in different stages of European integration, namely, in the stage of reconciliationbetween the two countries from1949to1963, the Franco-German relations is the “engine” ofthe integration; in the axis stage from1963to1990, France and Germany plays the role of“booster” for the integration; after the Cold War, it is adjustment phase from1990to2008,France and Germany have shaped the image of the “navigator” in the development ofintegration; since the outbreak of the financial crisis in2008, the two countries became the“crutch” for the integration.All in all, the Franco-German relations have been playing a significant role in thedevelopment of European integration. Although cooperation and competition coexist in theFranco-German relations, the cooperation has always been the mainstream, and this trend willnot change greatly in foreseeable future, the relations between France and Germany willcontinue to play an important part in the development of European integration.