German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed that relations between the two countries are good and not in crisis, as some have said in the past.
"We will always agree and we are moving forward," Macron said at the Franco-German Council of Ministers on Tuesday.
Scholz spoke of the cohesion between Berlin and Paris during the coronavirus pandemic and their joint support for Ukraine. "That is why I am quite sure that the Franco-German friendship will continue in future, especially when it comes to economic decisions about the future," he said at the gathering at Meseberg Palace near Berlin.
"We always come to an agreement," he said, adding this had been true in the past and was a good forecast for the future.
Macron emphasised that there have always been claims of crises in recent decades but even if a proposal was made and no response came right away, it did not mean this was a crisis.
People do not always share the same view, and that is legitimate, he said. The job is to overcome the differences and find a common solution. This would then never be completely German or completely French, but Franco-German, Macron said.
"Precisely because our two countries also incorporate different perspectives, the probability that an understanding that takes place between the two of us is also one that works well for many others is quite high," Scholz said.
