The “Weimar Triangle” is, loosely, a grouping of Poland, Germany, and France. The group is intended to promote cooperation between the three countries in crisis zones. It exists mostly in the form of summit meetings between the leaders of these three countries, and of their foreign ministers. The most recent summit of leaders occurred on 7 February 2011. Previous meetings took place in Poznań, Poland (1998), Nancy, France (1999), Hambach, Germany (2001), and Nancy, France (2005). The summits of Foreign Ministers have been more regular, running at least through 2016.

At the 2011 summit hosted by President Bronisław Komorowski of Poland and attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy (France) and Chancellor Angela Merkel (Germany), the heads of state discussed issues of renewing regular Weimar Triangle meetings, the Egyptian situation, and improving relations with Russia (among other topics). Both Germany and France urged Poland to join the pact for competitiveness. The most recent summit took place in 2022 in Berlin.

History

The Weimar Triangle was established in the German city of Weimar in 1991, aimed at assisting Poland’s emergence from Communist rule. Attending the meeting were the Foreign Ministers of each state: Roland Dumas of France, Hans-Dietrich Genscher of Germany, and Krzysztof Skubiszewski of Poland. Genscher chose Weimar for the inaugural meeting because it was situated in former East Germany.

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 the Western European Union, the European arm of NATO.

On 5 July 2011, Poland, France, and Germany signed an agreement in Brussels to put together a unit of 1,700 soldiers, called the Weimar Battlegroup, that will be ready to deploy in crisis zones starting in 2013. The EU business newsletter reports that Poland will command the group, providing the core combat troops and a mechanised battalion, Germany will provide logistical support, and France will contribute medical support. The operational command centre will be based in Mont Valerien, located in a Paris suburb.

Shortly after the referendum on the status of Crimea held on 16 March 2014, the chairpersons of the Weimar Triangle parliament’s committees on foreign affairs – Elisabeth Guigou of France, Norbert Röttgen of Germany and Grzegorz Schetyna of Poland – visited Kyiv to express their countries’ firm support of the territorial integrity and the European integration of Ukraine. This was the first time that parliamentarians of the Weimar Triangle had ever made a joint trip to a third country.

In April 2016, Poland’s foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski told daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza that the Weimar Triangle had lost its relevance for his country.

On 28 August 2016, representatives of the three countries vowed to “reinvigorate” the Weimar Triangle. German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the group would meet before the end of 2016, and French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said France would host a summit in November 2016. The stated reasoning for this reinvigoration were the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, as well as the ongoing European migrant crisis.

On 8 February 2022, the meeting between Presidents Emmanuel Macron, Andrzej Duda, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz took place in Berlin to discuss security cooperation in the face of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian crisis. This was the first such trilateral meeting between the three heads of state in many years and was seen as a step towards strengthening the Weimar Triangle format. At a joint press conference, President Duda appealed for unity among European leaders saying that “We must show that we speak in one voice”. The German Chancellor stressed that any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial 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.”

Summits of foreign ministers

1. 8–29 August 1991 in Weimar, Germany
2. 23–24 April 1992 in Bergerac, France
3. 11–12 November 1993 in Warsaw, Poland
4. 14–15 September 1994 in Bamberg, Germany
5. 26 October 1995 in Paris, France
6. 19 December 1996 in Warsaw, Poland
7. 19 November 1997 in Frankfurt/Oder, Germany
8. 6 January 1999 in Paris, France
9. 30 August 1999 in Weimar, Germany
10. 7 June 2000 in Kraków, Poland
11. 16 January 2002 in Paris, France
12. 15 May 2004 in Berlin, Germany
13. 27 June 2005 in Nancy, France
14. 2005 in Warsaw, Poland
15. June 2008 in Paris, France
16. June 2009 in Weimar, Germany
17. 26–27 April 2010 in Bonn, Germany
18. 20 May 2011 in Bydgoszcz, Poland
19. 29 February 2012 in Berlin, Germany
20. 23 June 2012 in Warsaw, Poland
21. 31 March-1 April 2014 in Berlin and Weimar, Germany
22. 3 April 2015 in Wrocław, Poland
23. 28–29 August 2016 in Weimar and Berlin, Germany
24. 15 October 2020 in Paris, France
25. 10 September 2021 in Weimar, Germany

Summits of heads of state

1. 21 September 1993 in Gdańsk, Poland
2. 21 February 1998 in Poznań, Poland
3. 7 May 1999 in Nancy, France
4. 27 February 2001 in Hambach, Germany.
5. 9 May 2003 in Wrocław, Poland. Held a few days before the referendum on the entry of Poland in the European Union.
6. 19 May 2005 in Nancy, France
7. 5 December 2006 in Mettlach, Germany
8. 7 February 2011 in Warsaw, Poland
9. 8 February 2022 in Berlin, Germany. The meeting of President Emmanuel Macron, President Andrzej Duda and Chancellor Olaf Scholz was focused on the threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity from Russia.

Summit on 3 July 2006 in Weimar, Germany was postponed due to alleged indisposition of the Polish president Lech Kaczyński.

Summits of Defence Ministers

1. 25 July 2006 in Wieliczka, Poland
2. 18 December 2007 in Berlin, Germany

In March 2015, Germany’s Minister of Defence Ursula von der Leyen hosted her counterparts Jean-Yves Le Drian of France and Tomasz Siemoniak of Poland to revive a meeting format intended to promote cooperation between the three countries in crisis zones; it was the first meeting between the Weimar Triangle defence ministers since 2007.

Summits of Ministers of European Affairs

1. 30 September 2015 in Paris, France

In January 2020, the ministers of European Affairs met again in Paris, where they discussed among other things the rule of law and the 10-year EU budget. They also visited a special painting exhibit about Poland’s history at The Louvre.

Joint meetings of the Committees on European Affairs

1. 14 November 2014 in Berlin, Germany
2. 2013 in Gdańsk, Poland
3. 2012 in Paris, France

References