Stone-Laying Ceremony for the New Embassy Building of
France and Germany
Dhaka, 22nd January 2013
Speech of the German Ambassador
Honorable Minister,
Excellencies,
Colleagues of the French and the German Embassy,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Two embassies in one house?
Germans and French under one roof?
Will it be beer or champagne, sausages or camembert?
Are you really sure that you want to take that commitment?
Imagine Bangladesh had an embassy together with India in Berlin –
how could that work out?
And what are you going to do in case of a sudden political crisis
between Paris and Berlin? Who will move out and take a room in the
next hotel?
Those were some of the questions Michel and I could hear from our
friends in Dhaka over the past few weeks when we told them about
today’s event.
What did we say to that, Michel, you and I? I believe we mostly
smiled. We smiled because we are simply not aware of any major
issues at the political level. How could we be worried about divorce
as we are finally joining our forces today on this piece of lawn in
Baridhara?On the contrary, we are relieved. Relieved that, after years
of hard work of countless colleagues in our two capitals, we are
finally allowed to temporarily change into masons today, laying the
first two stones of our new embassy building. Let me thank all our
guests who have come to share this unique moment with us.
A unique moment indeed as this is definitely a first in our common
history. Today, the members of both our embassies may proudly see
themselves as pioneers. Never before did France and Germany
actually build a house together to be used for their respective
embassies in a third country.
Practical considerations may have helped us to take this decision –
fair enough. Dhaka is a challenge for everyone venturing into issues
of real estate. Using limited space in the most intelligent way is
something we can learn from our host country. The decision to build
this house is a case in point.
How did we conceive it, and how do we build it? The answer is quite
simple: we are putting together what we can do jointly, and we are
keeping apart what should continue to be done separately. We are
not building a Franco-German embassy, but a building for the French
and the German embassy – this is an important nuance. Michel’s
successor will not be obliged to be driven in a BMW, and my
successor will not have to serve Beaujolais at his Oktoberfest. We
remain what we are, what we are known for, and what – hopefully we are appreciated for.
For more than 1200 years, we have been different, yet close. Charles
the Great, or Charlemagne, or Karl der Große, may be our common
ancestor. But his sons started to quarrel, and his empire was lost –
not even Napoleon, a thousand years later, was able to reunite it for
more than a short while.
Putting an end to a sequence of painful chapters of our common
history, Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer finally signed a
treaty of which we are celebrating the Golden Jubilee today. Peace
between France and Germany is now well established. Cooperation
and understanding have reached the deeper layers of our two
societies. We are happy to remain different, but committed to
walking our way together within the continent of Europe, which has
finally found its balance after the fall of the Berlin Wall. We will build
more houses together, showing our friends on other continents that
Europe is one, yet diverse, full of different colors and shades, but
proud of its heritage and identity.
May this new building become a place of friendship, trust, and good
vibrations between France, Germany and Bangladesh.
Thank you very much for your attention.