The "Weimar Triangle" is, loosely, a grouping of Poland, Germany, and France. The group is intended to promote co-operation 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, Nancy, France, Hambach, Germany and Nancy, France. The summits of Foreign Ministers have been more regular, running at least through 2016. The most recent leaders' summit was hosted by President Bronisław Komorowski of Poland and attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel. Issues of renewing regular Weimar Triangle meetings, the Egyptian situation and improving relations with Russia were discussed. Both Germany and France urged Poland to join the pact for competitiveness.
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 parliaments'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 ministerWitold 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 ministerFrank-Walter Steinmeier said the group would meet before the end of 2016, and French foreign ministerJean-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.
In March 2015, Germany's Minister of DefenceUrsula 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 co-operation between the three countries in crisis zones; it was the first meeting between the Weimar Triangle defence ministers since 2007.
In January of 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
