We needed 40 years to overcome East Germany. Sometimes in history, one has to be prepared for the long haul and not ask after four months if it still makes sense to keep up our demands.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Overcoming the Cold War required courage from the people of Central and Eastern Europe and what was then the German Democratic Republic, but it also required the steadfastness of Western partner over many decades when many had long lost hope of integration of the two Germanys and Europe.
It is not in the interest of the German people or in the interest of world peace that Germany should become a pawn or a partner in a military struggle for power between the East and the West.
The people in East Germany have lived through so many changes in the last 15 years like never before in the country, and they did this often with great enthusiasm. But in the West we also have a high degree of transformations.
At German unification, we were lucky to get so much help from West Germany. Now, we have the good fortune of being able to help each other in Europe.
However, from the very beginning of the program, we made it perfectly clear that we would be out of Europe in four years; that whatever was to be accomplished had to be accomplished in that period of time.
The only thing the East German system taught us was that we should never do it that way again.
During the past few years I have led a sometimes hard battle for German foreign policy.
It took us 50 months in Germany, post World War II to go from the end of the war to a national election.
We left Germany when I was 11.
Very early, it became clear to me that East Germany could not function.