2. It is possible that the situation may improve before October 23. After the Bundestag
debate on September 23 about the Moscow visit, Dr. Adenauer will be free
to give his main attention to Saar matters, and can be expected to work for acceptance
of the Referendum. Nevertheless it is only prudent for us to lose no further
time in giving consideration to what our attitude should be if the Statute is rejected.
The Legal Position
3. The Franco-German Agreement of October 23, 1954, which is in fact the same
document as the Statute (copy attached), says in Article 1 : „After this Statute has
been approved by a Referendum it will no longer be brought in question until the
conclusion of a Peace Treaty.“ It makes no provision for what will happen if it is
not approved by the Referendum. The French view is that the Agreement then falls
to the ground and the situation reverts to the status quo ante. Our legal advice is
that the French view is juridically correct. A fuller note on the internal constitutional
aspect is attached.
4. It would however not be correct to maintain that the rejection of the Saar Statute
invalidates the rest of the Paris Agreements. It is true that politically speaking the
Paris Agreements were a „packet“ in which the Germans conceded the Saar Statute
while the French conceded German sovereignty. Unfortunately for the French however,
the Germans succeeded in attaching the string of the Referendum to their concession
on the Saar, while the French concession on German sovereignty was unconditional.
While therefore it is likely that, if the Referendum is rejected, the
French will claim to have been tricked, they will have no legal grounds for such an
assertion.
The Practical Problem
5. From this point on the present paper assumes that the Referendum has gone
against the Statute. The different, but almost equally awkward hypothesis, namely
that the Statute has been approved by an insignificant minority, will forni the
subject of a separate study.
6. The French Government have given no indication that they would be prepared to
enter into fresh negotiations with the Federal Government after the Statute is
rejected. Similarly Herr Hoffman [sic] has said that if the Statute is rejected his
Government will not be bound to hold further elections until the end of the present
Landtag’s normal term, i.e. 1957.
7. While the French Government and the Saar Government will thus wish to revert
to the status quo, things will almost certainly have gone too far for this by that
time. The political campaign, particularly the taste of blood provided by a successful
vote against the Statute, is bound to awaken the Germanic national conscience
of the Saarlanders. While they did pretty well economically out of the French
connexion in the years immediately after the war, they are now highly conscious of
the booming conditions in the Federal Republic and purely in terms of economic
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