‘First aid workers’. On 11 December 1995, a few days after the Franco-German summit in Baden-Baden, Austrian cartoonist Ironimus (Gustav Peichl) offers an ironic depiction of the joint action of French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to rescue a Europe that is suffering and revive the European integration process. On 7 December, the two men sent a joint letter to the leaders of the European Union Member States setting out the objectives of the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference (proposal to introduce a clause in the Treaty of Maastricht providing for enhanced cooperation for states keen to step up the process of policy integration).