TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/022690/02260013.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 15.2 KB | 311 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 12

EUROPE

East Meets West At Last


In spite of old fears, the World War II Allies and the two
Germanys agree to a process that could remake the Continent by
the end of 1990

By BRUCE W. NELAN -- Reported by William Mader/London,
Christopher Ogden with Baker and Ken Olsen/Bonn


    Great issues of statecraft normally require great
deliberation. Since the U.S. and the Soviet Union opened talks
on controlling the growth of their strategic nuclear arsenals in
1969, only two limited treaties have been signed, the last one
in 1979. East-West negotiations on reducing conventional armies
in Europe began in Vienna and have yet to reach any agreements.
Members of the European Community have been working toward
economic integration, scheduled for 1992, since the Treaty of
Rome was signed in 1957.

    But that was the postwar world; this is the post-cold war
world, and things are dizzyingly different. Europe has been
transformed by the retreat of Soviet imperial power, the
collapse of Communist governments in the center of the Continent
and the evaporation of the Warsaw Pact. The blinding pace of
events actually accelerated last week, clearing the way for the
unification of Germany, a new European security system and a
35-nation conference to ratify the reconstruction -- all before
the end of this year.

    Only three weeks ago, President George Bush proposed
cutting Soviet and American troop levels in the heart of Europe
to 195,000 each, with the U.S. allowed an extra 30,000 in bases
elsewhere in Europe. The following week Moscow said no,
insisting on absolute parity. Last week, faced with demands for
total withdrawal of Soviet troops from the soil of several East
European allies, Moscow agreed. "We're dealing with historic
change," Bush said. "It's very, very fast. We weren't aware on
Monday that [we] were going to have a deal on Tuesday."

    Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev began the year opposed to
German unification but unexpectedly backed East German Prime
Minister Hans Modrow's proposal earlier this month for a united,
neutral country. Gorbachev then agreed with visiting West German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl that unification is something for the
Germans to work out among themselves, and he seemed to waver
even on the principle of neutrality. Two weeks ago, Kohl
proposed a monetary union with East Germany. By last week that
suggestion had already become official policy on both sides of
what used to be the Berlin Wall.

    Since that wall was breached in November, German
unification has usually been described as inevitable. Now it is
considered imminent. NATO and Warsaw Pact Foreign Ministers
gathered last week in Ottawa to discuss and quickly agree to
Open Skies, a newly revived Eisenhower-era proposal that will
allow unarmed planes to monitor military activities throughout
the two alliances. Even as the formal meetings were going on,
ministers of the two Germanys and the four victorious Allies of
World War II, which retain some legal rights in Germany because
no peace treaty has ever been signed, ran an almost continuous
series of bilateral and multilateral talks in side rooms,
corridors and hotel suites. They focused on how to impose order
on the rush toward unification and reassure the nations that are
most unsettled by the prospect. They agreed, said British
Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, on "a framework for avoiding
free-fall."

    What they came up with is a scheme insiders have dubbed
"two plus four," which calls first for the governments of the
two Germanys to meet, probably just after the March 18
elections in East Germany. They are to make internal
arrangements for political and economic merger. When those have
been agreed on, the four World War II powers -- the U.S., the
Soviet Union, Britain and France -- will join the discussions
to resolve the external aspects of unification: the complicated
issues of Germany's relationship to existing alliances, what
troops may be stationed on German soil, formal recognition and
security guarantees for the present borders. To seal the
process, the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation
in Europe, which came together in Helsinki in 1975, would meet
at summit level late this year.

    Actual unification might be simpler than it appears.
Article 23 of West German Basic Law, the country's
constitution, provides that other German states can simply
accede to the Federal Republic. Some legal experts in Bonn
interpret that to mean that East Germany or its individual
states can simply announce that they are joining the West. If
the East were to choose the route of Article 23, the Munich
daily Suddeutsche Zeitung observed, "reunification through
Anschluss would hit the Federal Republic like a thunderbolt."
The rest of Europe would feel it too.

    Many Europeans are apprehensive about reassembling a
Germany of 77 million people in the center of the Continent.
The Soviets, who estimate they lost 26 million people in their
Great Patriotic War against the Nazis, have been the most
vehement. If they were able, the Soviets would prevent
unification altogether. That is impossible in view of
Gorbachev's myriad problems, so they have tried to slow the
process and attach conditions. When the "four" join the
negotiations of the "two" in a few weeks, Moscow is expected to
continue to argue for neutralization.

    "No one doubts the right of Germans to self-determination,"
said Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in Ottawa last
week. "But Germany's neighbors are entitled to guarantees that a
united Germany will not be a threat to them, that it will not
seek to revise European borders and that it will not see a
rebirth of Nazism and fascism."

    Time is probably all Moscow can gain by foot dragging, and
perhaps not much of that. Gorbachev is too preoccupied with his
declining economy and ethnic warfare in several republics to try
single-handedly to remake Europe. Some 390,000 Soviet troops are
still based in East Germany, but in practical terms they are
much more likely to serve as part of a future security guarantee
than as a weapon for working Moscow's political will.


    The course of German events is a clear demonstration of how
weak Soviet influence has become. The cold war's first frosts
were felt in the months after V-E day in 1945 over Soviet
attempts to force the Allies out of Berlin and consolidate
Soviet control over Germany. The Soviets were determined that
the Germans would never rise again and that their obedient
Prussian and Saxon servants would rule permanently in East
Germany. As elsewhere in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union could
influence events only as long as it was willing to use its
military power.

    Shevardnadze said last week, "I think that the ideal
solution would be a neutral Germany. How realistic it is is a
question." The answer is, not very realistic at all. A Germany
separated from NATO and heavily armed against all comers would
be a very large cannon loose on Europe's deck, more worrisome to
Moscow than it would be if it were still inside the alliance.

    Three East European countries want no part of the Soviet
stand. "I don't think it is a practical proposition," said
Polish Foreign Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski. "Through
neutrality you might easily isolate that economic giant and
create a situation where Germany tries to become a power or a
superpower." He said Poland would support an arrangement under
which Germany remained in NATO if Western troops did not move
forward into what is now East Germany. Hungary and
Czechoslovakia supported the Poles.

    That exact proposal has been advanced by West German
Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. Under the Genscher
plan, Germany would remain in NATO, but the alliance would
undertake not to move any military units eastward after
unification. It was only after a reassuring two-hour discussion
with Genscher that Shevardnadze agreed to the two-plus-four
formula, and U.S. officials say the Soviets have been more
flexible in private than in public. In London a high-ranking
British diplomat said, "They are already talking to us as if it
were a fait accompli." Said a senior Soviet diplomat: "We of
course would prefer a neutral Germany under our influence. If
that cannot be . . . we would prefer the Genscher plan to an
unanchored neutral Germany on its own. It is better to have it
tied to NATO in some form than loose on its own."

    Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov said in Moscow
that the Soviet Union wants guarantees that Germany will pose no
military threat. Neutrality is one way to achieve that goal --
but not the only way. "Our concern," he added, "is that war
never again be unleashed from German soil." Western diplomats
believe the Genscher plan will eventually carry the day, with
Moscow reluctantly going along.

    Most of the concerns about German unity have traditionally
come from Moscow, but anti-German sentiment has by no means
disappeared in Western Europe, despite nearly four decades of
close cooperation inside the European Community. A Dutch
official, who asked not to be identified, said last week,
"Except for the Germans, no one in Europe wants reunification."
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has given broad hints
of her feelings. At a dinner at 10 Downing Street in honor of
Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki last week, she said the
developments in Europe "may stir deeply felt anxieties." Poland
and Britain alike "have had experiences in this century which
have left their mark and which we are determined should not
happen again." Although Thatcher assured Genscher later in the
week that she will support his plan in the spirit of allied
unity, she has also agreed with French President Francois
Mitterrand that some of their countries' troops should stay in
Germany even if American forces withdraw.

    A recent poll indicates that 61% of the French favor German
unification (vs. 45% of the British), but Paris officials are
not enthusiastic. Said Foreign Minister Roland Dumas: "I took
note of the remark of one East German who said, `Our friendly
neighbors should understand the desire of Germans for
reunification.' I am tempted to answer him, `Germans should also
understand the worries of their friendly neighbors.'" Mitterrand
last week conceded "the Germans' fundamental right to
self-determination." But then he quickly added, "That said, the
Germans must take into consideration the engagements that bind
us to each other, to European security, to the future of the
Community, to European equilibrium."

    Dominique Moisi, co-founder of the French Institute for
International Relations, finds that anti-German attitudes have
become "rather fashionable among the French elite." The "climate
of opinion," he says, is "moving in the wrong direction. We are
beginning to see Germany presented as the new Japan within
Europe. Japan is a code word for something alien, something
non-European." He believes, on the contrary, that Germany is a
"truly European power" and its unification will be a "positive
thing."

    Aside from their worry that a predilection for fascism and
aggression might somehow lurk in German genes, Europeans are
concerned about their economic future. The powerful $1.2
trillion West German economy already dominates the twelve-nation
organization. Some members believe the addition of 16 million
hardworking East Germans will increase that control, while
others fret that Bonn's expected preoccupation with rebuilding
the worn-out infrastructure in the eastern regions will delay
European integration.

    The President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, is
in the latter group. He told the European Parliament last week,
"I am haunted by anxiety as well as by hope. Will the Community
be pushed to the sidelines, or will it be the pole and magnet
for finding a solution to the German question?" Apparently
concerned that the Community could be overshadowed by the
planned 35-nation summit later this year, Delors proposed
calling an E.C. summit immediately after East German elections
in March.

    West German officials have presented a strong defense of
their motives and tried to put down the fears emanating from
East and West. "We are aware of the historical dimension of this
process," Genscher said in Ottawa, and that includes
"remembering all the suffering inflicted on other nations in the
name of Germany. We seek unification in the context of
integration in the European Community, East-West partnership for
stability, the building of a common European home and the
creation of a peaceful order throughout Europe." Genscher joined
with Shevardnadze in quoting Thomas Mann: "We seek a European
Germany, not a German Europe."

    To neighbors who demand guarantees for their borders,
Genscher said the united Germany will include the Federal
Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic and the four
sectors of Berlin -- "no less and no more. We do not have any
territorial claims against any of our neighbors." Said
Chancellor Kohl: " Germany must not thwart European integration.
What happens next must not adversely affect the stability of
Europe."

    Germans have been offering reassurances to skeptical
neighbors for decades without fully persuading them that the
"same old Germans" are no more than ghosts of a rejected past.
More than half of West Germans have been born since the end of
World War II, and the theory of unchanging national character is
demonstrably unscientific. In any case, the Federal Republic has
operated a healthy and vigorous democracy for more than 30
years. As former Chancellor Willy Brandt has said, while it is
true that there are nationalistic, right-wing groups in Germany,
such movements also exist in East European countries, and the
Soviet Union is home to the rightist, anti-Semitic Pamyat
organization.

    Meinhard Miegel, director of Bonn's Institute for Economic
and Social Research, argues that although suspicion of Germany
is understandable, it is unfounded. The Germans have "paid a
high price for the lessons of history and have created one of
the most liberal and democratic societies" in the world, he
says.

    Furthermore, says Miegel, the concerns about Germany's
economic dominance of the European Community are overstated. "A
sober examination," he says, "reveals that this economic giant
is by European standards a medium-size country in which the
population is declining and at the same time beginning to age."

    Arguments, no matter how logical, are unlikely to ease the
Germanophobia that still afflicts Europe. But such anxieties are
fortunately not driving the governments of East and West in the
wrong direction. They are not trying to stop the movement toward
unification. All have formally upheld the German right to
self-determination and have pushed to the back of their minds
the dark shadows of two world wars. They have promised to unite
what they hope will be a new Germany. One way to make certain
that the result is a European Germany will be for the Europeans
to complete the unification blueprint they agreed on in Ottawa
last week.