FGYO commitment to the Weimar Triangle
The Weimar Triangle brings fresh impetus to political dialogue and interactions in civil society. Through its trinational encounters, the FGYO meets its mission of encouraging exchanges among young people from France, Germany and Poland. Explore some of the projects selected and awarded a label of approval in 2025
FGYO and the Weimar Triangle
Since 1991, the FGYO has been implementing the ‘Spirit of Weimar’on behalf of the foreign ministries of France and Germany through its support of more exchange programmes with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The new intergovernmental agreement on the FGYO of 25 April 2005 specifically extends to the new countries that joined the EU in 2004. Since then, Poland has become the country with the most frequent involvement in trinational youth encounters. In 2024 alone, 13% of all such gatherings included young people from that country.
The underlying aim of trinational projects organised with the support of the FGYO is to put the organisation’s expertise at Europe’s service. As specialists in intercultural learning have shown, the presence of young people from three countries creates a different impact, enabling greater interest in Franco-German cooperation and raising awareness of the path taken by France and Germany by revealing their similarities to other countries. This enhances the impacts of intercultural learning and makes participants more aware of the different perspectives of European history.
A priority focus for the FGYO: Europe and European values
The main mission of the FGYO is to foster a Europe of peace and diversity, and to take this idea forward hand in hand with the European Union. Working in cooperation with several thousand partners, the FGYO is a laboratory for innovation and a pioneer for European and intercultural youth encounters.
The label
Why a label?
The objective of this label is to highlight the diversity and scope of Franco-German-Polish projects youth-exchange projects. The label underscores the commitment by young people and organisations carrying out these projects in the Weimar Triangle.
The Franco-German Youth Office (FGYO) and the German-Polish Youth Office (GPYO) work to promote civil-society initiatives and greater cohesion within the EU, to make it possible to recognize the Weimar Triangle as an important vector for European integration, particularly in these times of internal and external conflicts facing Europe.
Who can receive it ?
The label is simple to achieve and is not tied to any particular set of criteria. The FGYO and the GPYO determine the eligibility of grant applications for each Franco-German-Polish project submitted to them and award the label to candidates presenting projects that support the idea of the Weimar Triangle. The label is intended exclusively for Franco-German-Polish projects.
The projects
Below are the projects selected and awarded the 2025 label.
Culture Pass
Participants at a Franco-German-Polish encounter of young people took as their example the models of the pass culture and the KulturPass that already exist in France and Germany. Their discussions revolved around young people’s expectations with regard to artistic and cultural offers and the accessibility made possible by the KulturPass – particularly for young people who typically have little access to offers in art or culture.
Based on this, the young people articulated their needs and ideas around participation in culture and artistic practice. Their specific ideas formed the subject of interactions with political leaders and personalities actively involved in the cultural, political and educational spaces of the three countries.
This is the first trinational project to have received the Weimar Triangle Label awarded by the FGYO and the GPYO. More info
Where? Genshagen Castle
When? 3-8 March 2025
Who? 21 young people, aged 18 to 25, from France, Germany and Poland
Organiser: The Genshagen Foundation
Partners: FGYO, GPYO, German Federation of Associations for Cultural Youth Education (BKJ)
Support provided by: The Hippocrene Foundation
What is the Weimar Triangle?
In the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain, the ambition of France, Germany and Poland was to identify common fundamental interests in an effort to develop cross-border cooperation. On 28 August 1991, Roland Dumas, Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Krzysztof Skubiszewski, the respective foreign ministers of the three countries, gathered in the city of Goethe and Schiller, authors of German Enlightenment, to create the Weimar Triangle. It was in a ten-point declaration that the ministers reaffirmed their countries’ decisive responsibility within the process of European integration. The idea was to associate France with German-Polish reconciliation by drawing on the Franco-German experience, and to strengthen dialogue and political cooperation across a variety of fields. Their initiative was also a matter of supporting what was looming at the time: Poland's accession to NATO (1999) and to the European Union (2004).
The link that the Weimar Triangle helps create among the countries of Central and Western Europe represents a considerable asset for the EU. By overcoming their national thinking, the three countries are working together to invest on behalf of a shared future and to promote peace in Europe. More than ever before, the trend in current socio-political debates underscores the importance of youth encounters, cultural events and town twinning that help promote European integration and the emergence and acceptance of a shared identity.
