Germany, one of the founding members of the European Union, has always been committed to the European project - a supranational undertaking unprecedented in human history.
While the euro crisis is more than just another bump in the road along the path to an "ever closer union" between the peoples and nations of Europe, it is not the end of that road either.
"What matters is that we show the political will to work together to make (the) European integration project a success," Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and former Foreign Ministers Hans Dietrich Genscher, Klaus Kinkel and Walter Scheel said in a joint guest contribution published in the renowned German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on November 12, 2011.
"In doing this, we must not only state what is not possible," they added. "We have to actively advance towards a stability union. We need a new debate on the future of the European Union throughout Europe."
Together, France and Germany have been called the EU's "motor of integration." Paris and Berlin have this year both stepped up to the plate in a bid to salvage the euro. At an October 26 EU summit they decided along with other euro-zone leaders to leverage the European Financial Stability Facility, or EFSF, bailout fund to $1 trillion euros.
It would be a shame to lose the euro, another unprecedented project in human history and a defining symbol of European unity. Germany remains committed to the euro, the euro zone, and the European project.
Karen Carstens
Editor, The Week in Germany
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