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Minister of State for Europe Michael Roth travels to France for the Weimar Triangle
Minister of State Michael Roth will travel to Lens, France on Tuesday (21 January) for a meeting in the Weimar Triangle format. He will join his French counterpart Amélie de Montchalin and his Polish colleague Konrad Szymański to discuss important European issues including climate protection, the rule of law and the future of the EU. The three European affairs ministers will also visit the former mining community of Loos‑en‑Gohelle, which has been transformed into a pilot ecovillage, and an art exhibition commemorating the arrival of large numbers of Polish workers in the Northern French mining region at the beginning of the 19th century. A joint press conference is also planned.
Minister of State Roth, who is also Commissioner for Franco-German Cooperation, issued the following statement prior to his departure:
The Weimar Triangle is nearly 29 years old. By that age you have already experienced various ups and downs and know the value of reliable friendship. It is good that we are finally convening again in this format to move Europe forward together.
Background Information
The Weimar Triangle was founded at a meeting in Weimar in 1991 between Hans‑Dietrich Genscher, Germany’s foreign minister at the time, and his French and Polish counterparts, Roland Dumas and Krzysztof Skubiszewski. The aim was to identify what interests Germany, France and Poland had in common regarding Europe’s future and how cross-border regional cooperation could be improved. The European affairs ministers last met in this format in Warsaw in 2016.