Let's talk about reunification: Valuable lessons to be learned from the German example

LET us talk about Irish reunification. A border poll doesn’t seem imminent but since Brexit was painfully conceived, debates around reunification have certainly popped up more often.

Recent surveys in Northern Ireland suggest that the gap between the two camps of either strongly supporting the Union with the UK or a united Ireland has shrunk.

Interestingly, support for a united Ireland is stronger among the growing group identifying as neither unionist nor nationalist, a crucial bloc for any potential future majority, said Prof Pete Shirlow from the University of Liverpool at the Royal Irish Academy in June this year.

We should be warned though. I feel, every time a debate about Irish reunification features, there’s a gaping lack of detail, clarity and concrete plans. It all remains vague which does not help the overall discussion.

There are lessons to be learned from other countries. For example my home country Germany, which is seen as a successful example of a reunified nation. But has Germany lived happily ever after since reunification? Little could be further from the truth.

The event itself, German reunification in 1990, was a fortunate coincidence in history. Facilitated by then Irish Taoiseach Charlie Haughey, it helped at the time that the Soviet Union was stuck in a deep economic crisis and weakened by their Afghanistan adventure, also conscious of losing the technological battle with the USA. It seemed it was time for change, which came rapidly and most importantly: Peacefully.

Little is known about how the former Western German Republic and the German Democratic Republic (ie Eastern Germany) were merged. It wasn’t an integration, it was a takeover. Some observers might even say: a hostile one.

Immediately in 1990, entrepreneurs from the West came over to the East and were allowed to carve up the formerly state owned companies. Many made a fortune from it while thousands of ordinary workers either lost their jobs or were forced to start a completely new career.

Well, these first couple of years might have long been forgotten if the central promise made by then West German chancellor Helmut Kohl would have been fulfilled: “We’re going to transform the former socialist country into flourishing landscapes.”
It’s been 35 years but we’re still waiting for those to manifest themselves. Lasting differences between West and East pose a significant challenge to German society as a whole.

They got rid of the physical ‘Wall’ but the psychological one is pretty much still in existence. And there are even hard facts that sustain the assumption, that this ‘Wall’ has even grown.

Just this year, a shockingly low number of 35 percent of people asked in Germany agreed, that Western and Eastern Germany have merged successfully into one nation. 75 percent of people asked in the East said there are more things separating the two parts of Germany than unites them.

If we look at economic performance, household income in the former Eastern part is lower, unemployment rates are higher, and rural depopulation is a huge problem. It’s an issue everywhere but specifically in the East. Many Landkreise (counties) have lost large chunks of their population.

A recent study by the German Institute for Economy shows that the economy in the East is stagnating at 78 percent of Western level. And while it had been catching-up since 1990, narrowing the gap, recent years have shown the opposite
development.

The economic disparities are reflected in Germany’s most popular past-time: the top tier soccer league, the Bundesliga, which currently only includes one team from the East: Union Berlin, which doesn’t really count, as East Berlin is at least part of the capital, which forms some kind of an oasis in the otherwise deserted area.

Regional disparities between Western and Eastern Germany are still huge. Only a handful of the biggest companies reside in the East. There is way less scientific research than in the West. Four out of five registered patents in Germany come from the West.

A quagmire of problems. And on top of that, rural depopulation is making whole counties in the East completely unattractive to live in for young people as public infrastructure and GP coverage are thinning out.

Bearing these glaring disparities in mind, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, that there are also huge political differences between Eastern and Western Germany.

While the European wide post-WWII dual power struggle between social democrats (SPD) and Christian-conservatives (CDU) is still pretty much dominating mainstream politics in Western Germany, the East has always voted differently since 1990.

The legacy of a brutal communist dictatorship in the East from 1949-1990 has left its mark to this day. For example larger portions of German society in the East are sympathetic towards Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Regarding elections in the East, voter turnout is consistently lower than in the West. And in recent years, the right-wing extremist AfD (Alternative for Germany), has hugely increased their share of the vote in the East.

It’s become the most popular party outside urban areas. The AfD is a symptom of many unsolved issues mentioned above and the migration issue has poured fuel on an already burning fire in the last decade.

What is there to learn from an Irish perspective? We need a detailed debate. And anything remotely resembling a hostile takeover situation has to be avoided at all costs, quite literally.

I wouldn’t even talk about reunification. A merger of equals would be more like it. That would be a valuable lesson learned from the German example.

David Rischke, Digital Editor with The Mayo News, is a native of Germany

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