Fall of the Berlin Wall - the European Union

Europe looks east and rethinks old alliances

by Angela Diffley

Article published on the 2009-10-29 Latest update 2009-11-02 12:07 TU

European expansion 1957-2007
(Credit: Julio Reis/Wikipedia Commons)

"The end of history" was how American intellectual Francis Fukuyama, described the fall of the Berlin Wall. In reality a new and much more uncertain chapter of history was about to unfold. Europe was about to see big changes.

Anti-communism had been a unifying ideology for the West, and the balance of power between East and West during the Cold War was one factor that prevented major wars within Europe.

Now what would happen?

We know now that this was a huge worry, triggering near-panic among politicians in France and Britain at the time.

But the fact that in the end West and East Germany were reunited, and successfully absorbed as a single entity within the European Union, marked a success not just for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, but also for the EU itself. It is a measure of the political and economic strength of the EU, that it handled such a gigantic challenge fairly smoothly.

Jacques Delors
© Communauté européenne

That said, the end of the Cold War left the European Union questioning its purpose.

Should its political structure be even further tightened with the aim of eventually creating a single, federal superstate? Or was it now just to be a giant free market area? And now that the communist/capitalist division was obsolete, the EU was unsure where its boundaries stopped.

The questions are still being posed, with some arguing that the EU should now be an organisation for countries with what they consider is  a Judeo-Christian history and culture, others suggesting the inclusion of predominantly Muslim countries, most notably Turkey.

The  immediate consequence of the reunification of Germany was that Kohl and his team, keen to demonstrate that Germany did not intend to throw its weight about, embraced a tighter European Union structure.

The European Commission and parliaments were both given greater powers, with the aim of containing the new 70-million-strong country and limiting its influence.

This suited France well. The President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, was a Frenchman, and the French were adept at operating within the Brussels system.

Britain, however, had always resisted moves towards a more federal EU, and continues to fight against further loss of sovereignty.

In the longer term, however, Britain benefited from another result of German reunification.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his successors vigorously championed the EU’s expansion to the east. In 2004, eight east European countries joined, followed by another two in 2007, and today the EU has 27 members.

This enlarged EU is more to Britain’s liking.

With so many different member states, tighter integration is stalling. And the former eastern bloc countries have become allies of Britain in its pursuit of a more liberal economic outlook within the EU.

Another consequence of German reunification was that France and Germany could no longer run the EU as a partnership.

The influence of the Franco-German partnership within Europe had already begun to wane, even before the reunification of Germany. When the original six countries set up what was the forerunner of the EU, France and Germany easily dominated.

They agreed joint positions on policies, which they then more or less imposed on the other members. It wasn’t very transparent, but it was quite efficient.

The two countries between them represented most of the interests of the six member states. France was a big agricultural nation, predominantly Catholic, and Germany was heavily industrialised and mostly Protestant.

British historian Timothy Garton-Ash
(Credit: timothygartonash.com)

With the arrival of Britain, and new member-states in southern Europe Scandanavia, the influence of the partnership was diluted. When the eastern bloc countries joined, the partnership became more unequal. Germany’s strong connections and influence among east European countries upset its equilibrium.

The fall of the wall has had other consequences for the EU.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher feared that a unified Germany would overtake Britain as the US’s most important ally in Europe.

Historian Timothy Garton-Ash was one of a group of historians invited by Thatcher to a special conference in 1989 to discuss the possible consequences of German unification. He argues that her fear that it would kill off Britain’s so-called “special relationship” with Germany, was realised.

"I think that to some extent it has come to pass," he says, "in that I think that Germany probably is the United States’ most important partner in Europe. Not its easiest partner, not its friendliest partner, that’s still Britain. But its most important."