This article is about the 1954 Paris Agreements on the status of West Germany. For parallel conferences for peace in Korea and Indochina, see Berlin Conference (1954) and 1954 Geneva Conference.
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 some sovereignty[a], 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]
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.
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] Protocol No. II committed the United Kingdom to maintain four divisions and the Second Tactical Air Force in Europe.[4]
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).[b] 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.
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 after the war as a "protectorate" in an economic, customs and monetary union with France and with a government subordinate to a High Commissioner appointed by the French government. West Germany was keen to prevent further integration of the Saar with France and reincorporate the region into West Germany. France and West Germany negotiated an agreement under which the Saar would become a "European territory" and remain economically tied to France, but required a referendum of Saar residents on the new proposal. The 1955 Saar Statute referendum took place on October 23, 1955 and residents rejected the Paris Agreement proposal by 2-1. This was taken as a sign that residents preferred reunion with Germany.[citation needed] On 27 October 1956[citation needed] the Saar Treaty officially made Saarland a state of the Federal Republic of Germany.
See also
Since the end of World War II, sovereignEuropean countries have entered into treaties and thereby co-operated and harmonised policies (or pooled sovereignty) in an increasing number of areas, in the 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 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
^ abcdeAlthough 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.
^Between 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.
^However, if the four occupying powers could agree on, for example, changing a law of one of the Germanies or West Berlin, such could have been done via the Allied Control Council as both Germanies and West Berlin were still a condominium, with ultimate sovereignty resting in France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with their power being expressed through said council until 1990 and the Allied Occupation Zones before the formation of East Germany, West Germany, and West Berlin. The same was true in regards to Allied-occupied Austria until it was reunified in 1955.
^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".[5]
"Appendix B—Four powers conference", Journals of the Senate of Canada - Second session of the twenty-second Parliament (1955), Ottawa, Queen's Printer, 1955, p. 62a–62f
"Appendix C—Nine powers conference", Journals of the Senate of Canada - Second session of the twenty-second Parliament (1955), Ottawa, Queen's Printer, 1955, p. 62f–62t
"Appendix D—NORTH ATLANTIC COUNCIL", Journals of the Senate of Canada - Second session of the twenty-second Parliament (1955), Ottawa, Queen's Printer, 1955, p. 62t–62II
