Germans celebrated 10 years of unification yesterday. It was an occasion to reflect on their own experiences over a momentous decade. The fact that they occurred under a European roof has determined many of these events, putting Germany at ease with its neighbours for the first time in its modern history. That is an immense achievement, as was recognised yesterday by many of the speakers at a formal ceremony in Dresden to mark the occasion. Germany was reunified as part of a wider European process of continental unification, which will continue for at least another generation. Whether seen from within Germany or from outside it, there is a clear relationship between them.
The towering figure involved was Dr Helmut Kohl, chancellor right through the process, until he lost the federal elections two years ago. His fall from grace through a political funding scandal (in which he has refused to divulge details of donations to his CDU party) has been virtually complete - so much so that he was not invited yesterday. Unfortunately there has been an outburst of recrimination about his responsibility and that of the Social Democrats, then in opposition, whom he accuses of resisting unification.
But tributes were justifiably paid to his immense role, not least by President Chirac of France, who underlined that "it took courage to go so far, to propose such an ambitious and difficult path to his people". Ten years on, a colossal sum of 1.2 trillion deutschmarks (more than twice this year's German federal budget) has been spent modernising the eastern part of the country. Extraordinary progress has been made with infrastructure, the environment, regenerating society and transforming the east's economy into a market-based system. Nonetheless eastern Germany still lags the more developed western part of the country in employment, productivity and income. Psychologically, too, a gulf of superiority and inferiority remains between them, although this is breaking down among the younger generation. Political convergence has been equally slow. But undoubtedly this 10 years has created a platform for major achievements in the next generation.
Other Europeans have benefited from these events, but sacrificed much to achieve a relatively benign outcome. The costs of German unity spread beyond its shores with high interest rates, which set back overall European growth through a difficult decade. France was to the fore in locking Germany into the single currency project, which ensures it cannot unilaterally dominate the European economy, but must share its direction with other EU states.
Germany is now in a powerful position to influence enlargement of the EU, another dimension of its own unification, in which it has a profound interest. Despite resistance to rapid enlargement among significant sections of German public opinion, there is a deep political obligation to support that process, in fulfilment of the wider European dynamic that flows from its own history over the last decade.