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(German industrial and property investments in the Irish Republic are
substantial.)
"Spirit of Charlemagne" A largely overlooked (in the U.S. press) "mini
swmnit" between Schmidt and Giscard helped pave the way toward the EMS.
After the Bremen conference last July at which time Schmidt urged a
green light on the system, EMS fell on rough times. Proposals and
compromises between the strong and the weak nations were offered.
Schmidt and Giscard finally took all the differing ideas in hand in
September, went off by themselves, ironed everything out, and produced
the EMS structure as it now stands. Where they conferred in their
exclusive mini-summit is as significant as the result they achieved.
The two leaders met in the West German town near the French border
known as Aachen to the Germans. The French prefer to call it Aix-la
Chapelle. Reports Maclean's,the Canadian newsweekly:
"The choice of the ancient Alpine border town as the site for a summit
tet-a-tet between France's President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and
German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt did not go unnoticed.
"There, � the spot where Charlemagne� presided� his united
European empire, the two close friends and former finance ministers
hammered out the technical framework for a new European Community
currency system which will create an independent 'stable European
monetary zone' that is scheduled to go into effect next January,
cutting the community's ties to the vacillating American dollar."
The West German daily, Hannoversche Allegemeine, on September 18 added:
"Helmut Schmidt deliberately chose Aachen as the venue: Aach�n, the
city of Charlemagne, an emperor whom both Germans and French claim as
their own. It was the first Franco-German summit concerned almost
entirely wit�a�ropean project, the European Monetary System, which
is the brainchild of Giscard and Schmidt and an outstanding political
achievement."
At Aachen, the two leaders, appropriately enough, visited Charlemagne's
tomb. Equally significant, at one of their conferences, Giscard invoked
"the spirit of Charlemagne which has blown through this summit." At
least they went to the right place to get the "inspiration" they needed.
--Gene H. Hogber9, News Bureau
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