The Franco-Austrian Center for Rallying in Europe (CFA/ÖFZ) is a Franco-Austrian intergovernmental organization, initiated in 1976 by Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, in order to develop economic relations between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, and contribute to create a Europe of peace.
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After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the CFA refocused its action on the problems of the enlargement of the European Union (EU) and integrated into its field of activity Hungary and Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Slovenia, the Baltic States, as well as the Romania and Bulgaria. The vocation of the CFA as a space for reflection and exchange is in fact reinforced by the need to support the new member countries of the Union in their integration process. Since 2004, the CFA has also turned towards the Union’s new neighbors, in particular towards the countries of the Western Balkans, which see their future from a European perspective.
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The CFA strives to place all of its exchanges in a global perspective concerning the future of our continent. Today it centers its activities around three directions: the Franco-Austrian bilateral dialogue, the future of the EU, the future recomposition of the continent.
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Reports of all events organized by the CFA are available on its website (http://oefz.at). The CFA’s budget is provided by the French and Austrian Ministries of Foreign Affairs. Depending on the themes addressed, the CFA calls on European public and private institutions to help finance its meetings.
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The orientations of the CFA benefit from the recommendations of an Orientation Council, approved by a Board of Directors, which elects from among its members a president and a general secretary.
