Germany united: 10 years on

The collapse of the Berlin Wall symbolised the reunification of East and West Germany

By Robin Oakley
CNN.com European Political Editor

(CNN) -- The reunification of East and West Germany on October 3, 1990, did far more than add the 17 million citizens of the German Democratic Republic to the 63 million in the Federal Republic. It precipitated dramatic developments in the European Union, including the drive for economic and monetary union (EMU). It switched the focus of continental politics significantly to the East and, over a period, it altered Germany's whole approach to the EU.

Reunification reawakened suspicions among Germany's neighbours about the future intentions of the most powerful country in Europe. German calls for enlargement of the EU or for institutional reforms have received an extra degree of scrutiny and euro-sceptics in other countries have ever since played on previously latent fears of a resurgent Germany.

Despite Western delight at the falling of the Berlin Wall, other leaders had not shared Chancellor Helmut Kohl's delight at the prospect of rapid reunification. Margaret Thatcher in Britain dismissed it as "rash" and President Francois Mitterrand of France, in one of his less prescient comments, initially called it a "legal and political impossibility."

QUOTE The huge costs of reunification made Germany less willing to foot the bill for other European enterprises. Disillusion set in over issues like Bosnia and mad cow disease.

Kohl's efforts at reassurance included an intensified drive along with Mitterrand for an Intergovernmental Conference to embed Germany in a more integrated EU. That led to the Maastricht Treaty, which had dramatic effects in turn on the politics of other countries like the UK.

Counting the cost

Kohl and Mitterrand also pressed on with the drive for economic and monetary union. Kohl had ruled out getting the EU to contribute to the Federal Republic's costs in absorbing East Germany but underestimated the huge sums involved in restoring the infrastructure of a dilapidated country with huge pollution problems.

The German authorities were determined to retain international confidence in the deutschmark while they coped with this, and German interest rates were kept high. That forced other countries to raise their interest rates to stay within the narrow band of fluctuation against the D-mark permitted in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). It forced some into recession and increased their unemployment.

QUOTE Particularly through the long leadership of Kohl, the Germans were at pains to be especially helpful members of the EU. They wanted to minimise fears of an over-mighty Germany and bury memories of their Nazi past.

Both Britain and Italy could not take the strain. The lira was forced out of the ERM system, and so was the British pound -- sealing the fate of the British Conservative government. British Conservatives took a long time to forgive the German government.

Particularly through the long leadership of Kohl, the Germans were at pains to be especially helpful members of the EU. They wanted to minimise fears of an over-mighty Germany and bury memories of their Nazi past. "For Kohl, German reunification, EMU and political union went hand in hand," says Bernhard Lamers of the Konrad Adenauer Institute.

Mad cows and Bosnia

But the huge costs of reunification have made Germany less willing to foot the bill for other European enterprises. Absorbing the lander of the GDR (Brandenburg, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Thuringen, Mecklenburg-Verpommern and the city of East Berlin) gave Germany some of the poorest regions in the EU as well as the richest and made it harder for its politicians to satisfy the demands of domestic voters by being constantly cooperative in Brussels.

Disillusion set in over issues like Bosnia and mad cow disease, and even Germany's European Commissioner Gunter Verheugen voiced the concerns of many Germans that they never had the chance to vote in a referendum on swapping the deutschmark for the euro.

Other countries, like Italy, worried that reunification created a Germany so powerful that it was difficult to accommodate it in the European Union architecture. From Britain, Thatcher argued that the process of "tying down Gulliver" produced a rush to European federalism and an accelerated American withdrawal from Europe.

QUOTE From Britain, Thatcher argued that the process of "tying down Gulliver" produced a rush to European federalism and an accelerated American withdrawal from Europe.

In Paris, reunification brought intensified efforts to maintain a Franco-German axis as the dominant force in the EU. But while the French continued to stress the importance of the Mediterranean, a Berlin-centred Germany was seen by some neighbours to turn turned its eyes more to the East, to the Baltic States and to St. Petersburg.

German political leaders have continued to back EU enlargement. But with wage levels lower in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the residents of the former East Germany are cool and the drive for EU expansion is slowing down.

Most Germans remain happy at the reunification of their country. The physical results are obvious. The former East Germans now have the most modern infrastructure in the country in terms of motorways and telephones and a high proportion of high-tech industries.

But it is the political impact which has been crucial, and that will continue to play out for many years.

"Reunification under Kohl was a time of vision," says Lamers. "Since then we have been discussing the practical problems and grappling with the difficulties."