With EU Set to Expand, Eastern German States Find Their Stride

Eastern Germany comprises the five new federal states of Germany, or the “Neuer Lände.” The five states are Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia.

The region is about the size of Virginia, with a population of some 15 million, that borders Poland and the Czech Republic in Central Europe. Because eastern Germans lived for decades within a Communist social system, largely isolated from the political and economic trends of the West, they sometimes have attitudes and perspectives that differ noticeably from those of their western cousins. These differences, while not always apparent to Americans, continue to divide German culture and politics today.

Although the two Germany’s were legally reunified eleven years ago, cultural and economic reunification of the country has proven to be a much slower and more difficult process. Billions of dollars have poured into the former East Germany from the German government and the European Union to rebuild roads, telecommunications networks, schools, buildings and the railway system.

Despite massive subsidies, there is no doubt that much remains to be done to bring the New Federal States to the level of the other states of Germany. Unemployment is still high in Eastern Germany, real estate values are declining and average income remains lower than in the west. The transition to a market-oriented economy is ongoing. But there is clearly a new momentum gathering in Eastern Germany and it is unmistakably positive.

Looking behind the economic statistics and sometimes gloomy financial news headlines of today, one finds a region with enormous potential now beginning to be harnessed effectively, a region poised to become a key economic player in an expanded European Union.—