We are gathered here in the European Parliament today to remember that great French and European statesman Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who died a year ago at the grand old age of 94. It is an honour for me to take the floor as German Federal President. For President Giscard d’Estaing was a friend of Germany and of the Germans who was passionate about the Franco-German friendship – and equally passionate about the ever deepening integration of Europe.

Allow me to say this at the outset: for us Germans who remember him as President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was the personification of all that made the France of his time so appealing, so attractive: elegance and esprit, political reason and liberalism, civility and commitment to community, a rounded education and an awareness of the great importance of culture and history, cultivation and political expertise. We held and continue to hold you, Madame Giscard d’Estaing, in no less respect for these values and facets. On behalf of my fellow Germans, I would like once again to express our condolences and our respect to you and your family.

We Germans gazed in awe at the modern France for which Valéry Giscard d’Estaing stood: the France of, say, Concorde, the Centre Pompidou, the TGV and the Minitel. Above all, however, we in Germany knew that in Giscard we had a reliable friend and partner on the other side of the Rhine. For that we are grateful to him even after his death.

The Rhine, on which Strasbourg lies – so often a river of fate, so often fought over by French and Germans – on its banks was Giscard d’Estaing born, in Koblenz, where, following the end of the First World War, the Grande Guerre, his father was a member of the French military presence. France also occupied Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, situated high above the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle, once expanded by Prussia as part of an unyielding system of fortifications – against the then so called archenemy in the West, France.

Here of all places, in Koblenz, in occupied enemy territory, stood Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s cradle. And we can be quite sure that no one was singing over the future French President’s cradle that he would one day form the closest friendship of his political life with the head of government of a liberal, democratic, peaceful Germany: Helmut Schmidt. It is said that Giscard grieved for weeks after Helmut Schmidt’s death, saying that he felt as though a limb had been amputated.

Before this friendship, so valuable for the whole of Europe, could evolve, however, the world was to experience yet another dreadful war, a war in which Germany attacked France, and which ended only with unconditional surrender – when the Red Army ground down the last resistance in the German capital Berlin, the Western Allies previously having crossed the Rhine. Giscard d’Estaing, too, fought for a free Europe as a resistance fighter and finally also as a soldier.

Nevertheless, indeed precisely for that reason, reconciliation with Germany in a united Europe was a matter more than dear to his heart. So when, in the parade to mark 14 July 1995, German soldiers marched as part of EUROCORPS along the Champs Élysées – this time with entirely peaceful intent and as partners and friends – he was unable to hold back his tears.

It was thanks not least to his resolute policies that Franco German cooperation and friendship could develop to such an extent to allow such an event. And it was thanks to the friendship with Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, which began when they were their countries’ finance ministers – a friendship to which Franco German relations and European integration owe so much.

We will perhaps never know exactly what it was that bound the two so deeply. Perhaps it was in part their Christian faith, different though it was for each: the devout Roman Catholic Giscard, who to the very end of his life attended church on Sundays whenever possible, sometimes attending the German church in Paris, and one of whose cousins was a founder of the ecumenical Taizé Community; on the one hand the French Catholic, and on the other the Hanseatic Protestant Schmidt, who in his sober manner was committed to his conscience and to pragmatic compassion and service.

Neither of them spoke much about his faith. Neither of them was a dreamer. They both knew that political imagination is worth only as much as the concrete action to which it leads and the concrete, functioning institutions that breathe lasting life into it.

Thus at a time of great international and global economic turmoil, they both developed the idea of launching informal meetings of the countries with the strongest economies, precisely with the aim of identifying problems at an early stage and discussing solutions through direct exchange among the responsible heads of state and government. The first meeting in Château de Rambouillet really did take the form of the fireside chats the two men had envisaged, the atmosphere almost that of a family gathering – and no one at the time could have guessed what sort of organisational super events these meetings, later called G7 Summits, were to become. Nonetheless, Giscard and Schmidt had invented a durable format for an international meeting that international politics cannot and would not wish to dispense with to this day.

Giscard d’Estaing then also took the initiative to organise regular summit meetings of the heads of state and government of what was then the European Community. Meetings which evolved into the European Council. Even today, this single table at which all EU heads of state and government regularly gather, with its integrating energy, is a motor for European cohesion and success, and a problem solver that has played an essential role throughout all European crises.

Confidence building through direct dialogue, sensible and pragmatic solutions in controversial matters through direct exchange – Giscard d’Estaing believed these to be the best political instruments. This pragmatist – who, however, always thought beyond the moment – trusted in reasonable discourse and in the power of argument.

This, too, was something he had firmly in common with Helmut Schmidt, with whom he eventually initiated the European Monetary System, with its resulting accounting unit, the ECU, the precursor of the euro.

Here in this distinguished chamber we must also recall that it was Giscard d’Estaing who advocated with determination for the extension of the powers of the European Parliament. The first universal direct election to this parliament was held while he was still in office in 1979.

After his term in office as President, and especially after the upheavals of 1989, the European Community had to grow bigger and closer. In 2001, Giscard once again agreed to serve, assuming the Chair of the Convention on the Future of Europe, which drafted a constitution for Europe. He poured all his energy, all his diplomatic flair, all his experience of statesmanship gleaned from many offices and tasks into ensuring that this project would be a success.

Not only Giscard’s heart was set on drawing up a constitution for Europe: he also derived the necessary energy and courage from his political reason and his sober rationality. All the more disappointed will he have been, then, that one of the countries to reject the treaty on a constitution for Europe in a referendum was his homeland, France.

For Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Europe was more than a far distant utopia and certainly more than a loose bundle born of economic opportunism and the lowest common political denominator. There can be no doubt that, to paraphrase Charles de Gaulle, Giscard had une certaine idée de l’Europe.

It was, I believe, the idea of a Europe that protects and promotes democracy and freedom, law and justice. A Europe that can assert itself and be heard in the world only if it stands as one. A Europe that exists and must persist in the diversity of its traditions, in the diversity of its cultures, in the diversity of its regional and national histories and its many identities.

But also a Europe that is resolved never again to allow this diversity to turn into irreconcilable enmity. That does not obscure, but also does not arbitrarily exacerbate, internal conflicts, but rather tries to mediate in patient, reasonable dialogue seeking unity and balance.

If we look at the past few months and years, everyone – especially everyone here in this chamber – knows that what Europe needs above all is constructive work, a great deal of patience, tremendous good will and huge effort not to fritter away all that we have already achieved. Everyone knows, too, that a word once given must be kept, that agreements must be kept, and that we have to be able to rely on each other both in good and in harder times.

The pioneers of European integration at that time not only stood before the rubble of a catastrophic war. They had also to create or rediscover the shared spiritual and intellectual foundations without which Europe does not exist. They had to overcome mental barriers that had been in place for generations and often awaken understanding particularly within their own nations for the path to a common future.

Konrad Adenauer is unlikely to have pleased all his compatriots when he said in 1948 that Cologne Cathedral, that great symbol of his Rhineland home city, had its roots in French soil.

And Valéry Giscard d’Estaing is unlikely to have made only friends by working so passionately and steadily for the Franco German friendship and for the great French nation to be an equal member of the colourful European family, including the medium-sized, small and microstates.

We Germans owe Valéry Giscard d’Estaing a huge debt of gratitude. In him we have lost a true friend. At the same time, we hope that his profound European convictions will find approval and support in France in future, too. And that the belief in Europe will continue to characterise French politics.

Let us make this promise to each other, not least in memory of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing: We will not fall behind. We will keep doing our work. Together for a united Europe.