11/03/2010
FNF - IFES International Conference
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of German Unification Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF) and the Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES) welcomed more than 150 guests at an international conference on “Politics of German Unification: Lessons for the Korean Peninsula” held in Seoul.
After short remarks of the two directors of FNF and IFES and a congratulatory address of the German Ambassador Hans-Ulrich Seidt, Manfred Richter, the treasurer of the FNF board of trustees, delivered the keynote speech on “Twenty years of Reunification in Germany”.
Richter, a young boy when the Berlin Wall was built and chief whip of the governing FDP when German unification was negotiated, addressed key issues of the process of unification and - from his own experience - shed light on what was eventually going on behind the scenes. It was a prudent new policy towards Eastern Europe and East Germany, he said, that allowed some progress within the 1970’s and made division a little more bearable. Never the less Richter stressed that it took more time, the background of Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika Policy, the rage of the people and finally a hole in the Iron Curtain, to set an end to Germany’s division. and finally led to unification at 00:00 CET on October 3rd, 1990.
“The main burden of reunification”, Manfred Richter emphasized, “was with the governments”. Germany’s neighbors were scared of a unified Germany; their reluctance had to be overcome. “At the same time numerous well-trained young people in the east literally sat on packed suitcases” and threatened that they would “go to where the Deutschmark is” without a fast monetary union. Additional time pressure created the awareness that the Soviet Union leadership might not last long enough for Germany to unify, but their signature was needed on a number of documents.
Richter acknowledged that a number of unsolved challenges still exist today and achieving Germany’s “inner unification” completely might take another generation, but he called to mind that millions of people were better off today than they were 20 years ago. “Yes, it was expensive”, he concluded, “but it was worth it”.
In the first session on “Unification in the Global and Regional Context Uwe Wissenbach, who is currently heading the European Union Delegation to the Republic of Korea as Chargé d'affaires a.i., spoke on „Unifying Europe and German Unification“ .
To Wissenbach German unification is an appealing success-story, hard to copy, that strongly contributed to unifying Europe. Reunification, he stressed, was negotiated – not given. It was only feasible due to preceding achievements of the European Community, NATO and ‘Ostpolitik’ and part of a bigger unification process that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union’s socialist satellite states.
North East Asia, Wissenbach assured, is integrating economically as well. However, he pointed out, more trust, political will and leadership is needed to push forward the agenda of cooperation and security in Asia. “Political integration is regularly held hostage” in the region and the task remains to persuade the population that “their well-being will be best served by moving away from a competitive system, based on a balance of power”.
Since it was the ASEAN that, as a consequence of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, invited China, Japan and Korea to the ASEAN+3 summits, Wissenbach paradoxically identified the association as the driving force behind cooperation in North East Asia. Uwe Wissenbach painted a clear picture of the German and European Unification’s interaction and described how Asian integration takes place in a very different setting.
Klaus Gollert, former minister of health, labour and social affairs and deputy prime minister of the federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in the second session spoke on „The Role of Political Parties in the Process of German Unification“.
Gollert grew up in former East Germany, and was actively engaged in the peaceful revolution within the GDR. As a medical doctor turning politician he played a pivotal role in shaping the process of German unification. In his presentation he gave unique insights into the political landscape and the role of parties in East Germany. He traced back historical backgrounds, developments, problems and consequences people were facing when they were not member to almighty Socialist Unity Party (SED). In order to evade omnipresent pressure to join the SED, he “immigrated” into one of the rather toothless block parties, the “National Democratic Party”, accepting manifold drawbacks for himself and his family. Gollert illustrated, that those politically active within the GDR, who later transformed their socialist dictatorship and lead their country towards liberty, had not been politicians by profession. He pointed out that, despite of what might be written about the end of socialism in Germany in the future, the events that took place within the GDR in 1989 were indeed a revolution: a revolution that mainly differs from other historical revolts because no shots were fired.
Within the last session of the conference on “Social Society and Unification”, the well-known German opinion pollster Reinhard Schlinkert analyzed and evaluated the current political mood in Germany, 20 years after unification, and backed up his arguments with charts of the most recent polls, provided by Infratet Dimap, a leading German psephology institute, that Schlinkert heads as chief representative.
Please take a look at our eventbox and the conference’s program.
Opening Session:
Opening Address
LEE Su-Hoon
(Director, IFES, Kyungnam University)
Welcoming Address
Walter KLITZ
(Resident Representative, FNF Korea Office)
Congratulatory Address
Hans-Ulrich SEIDT
(German Ambassador to the Republic of Korea)
Keynote Speech
Manfred RICHTER
(Treasurer of the Board of Directors of FNF, Former
Chief Whip of the FDP Parliamentary Group within the German Bundestag)
“Twenty years of Reunification in Germany”
Session I : Unification in Global and Regional Context
Moderator
HAMM Taik-young
(Professor, University of North Korean Studies)
Presenters
LEE Kyu-Young
(Professor, Sogang University)
“German Foreign Policy after Reunification: Continuity and Change”
Uwe WISSENBACH
(Counsellor, Chargé d’affaires a.i. European
Union Delegation to the Republic of Korea)
“Unifying Europe and German Unification”
PARK Myung-Lim
(Professor, Yonsei University)
“Globalization, East Asian Regional Order, and the Korean Unification
- Viewing from the Historical - Comparative Perspective”
Discussants
KIM Haknoh (Professor, Yeungnam University)
KO Sangtu (Professor, Yonsei University)
KOO Kab-Woo (Professor, University of North Korean Studies)
Session II : Issues of Political and Economic Integration
Moderator
LIM Hyun-Chin (Director, Seoul National University Asia Center)
Presenters
Klaus GOLLERT
(Former Minister of the German Federal State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)
“The Role of Political Parties in the Process of German Unification”
SONG Tae-Soo
(Professor, Labor Administration Training Institute, Korea University of Technology and Education)
“Process and Effects of Germany’s Economic Integration - Focusing on the Labor Market”
KOO Choon-Kweon
(Professor, Yeungnam University)
“The Political Economy of the German Unification and Korea”
Discussants
KANG Won-taek (Professor, Soongsil University)
KIM Heungchong (Director, Center for Regional Economic Studies,
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy)
SON Gi-Woong (Senior Research Fellow, Korea Institute for National Unification
Session III : Civil Society and Unification
Moderator
Falk BOMSDORF
(Former Resident Representative of FNF to Russia)
Presenters
Reinhard SCHLINKERT
(Chief Representative, Infratest dimap Gesellschaft für Trend- und Wahlforschung mbH)
“Social Impacts of German Unification”
LEE Dong-Ki
(Professor, Seoul National University)
“The German Left’s Criticism and Alternatives on the German Unification in 1989-90”
PARK Sun-Sung
(Professor, Dongguk University - Seoul)
“Korean Unification and Civil Society”
Discussants
CHO Dae-Yop (Professor, Korea University)
KIM Ho-Ki (Professor, Yonsei University)
LEE Yong-Sun (Professor, Co-President, Korean Sharing Movement
