Loading ...As many as 65 percent of the citizens of the European Union sees the fall of the Berlin Wall as a positive event, while 20 percent of them think otherwise, European Commissioner for Multilingualism Leonard Orban told a roundtable conference on Friday in Bucharest that discussed the significance of year 1989 as a crucial year for Europe.
Pointing out that the downfall had a major impact on European identity, Orban said the downfall of communism paved the way for democracy and a market economy in the countries in Eastern Europe and the EU continual support to these countries was essential to the transition of Eastern European countries from communism to a state of law.
Orban also said the EU's enlargement waves effected a rise from 40 to 52 percent of the EU average in the per capita income of these countries, and the rise did not occur to the detriment of the older member states, which Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased by 24 percent. At the same time, the value of Western exports to Eastern European countries increased from 98 billion euros in 1999 to 259 billion euros in 2008, and 60 percent of the exports of the new EU member states in 2007 were bound for the older states.
Orban also mentioned the cohesion policies of the European Union that facilitated the restructuring processes conducted in the new member states, indicating that cohesion funds made up 2 percent of the GDP of the new member states in 2007. He added that the cohesion funds are to be increased to 3 percent of the GDP of that countries in 2013.
Orban also pointed out that the Westerners' worries that the EU enlargement would trigger waves of immigrants to the older states proved to be unjustified, showing that the nearly 3.6 million people that migrated away from the new member states generated in the older states a rise in the economically active population of less than one percent, but it solved the labour shortage problems that would face the older states in certain industrial sectors.
Five years now after the last wave of enlargement started, which included Romania and Bulgaria, the EU is better positioned to cope with global competition and is playing an important role in the world's economy, contributing 30 percent to the formation of the world's GDP, carrying out more than 17 percent of the world's commercial exchanges.
German ambassador in Bucharest Roland Lohkamp discussed the efforts entailed by the reunification of Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also the effects of this move that were not always positive. He mentioned the worries of that time in Rome, Paris, London and some capital cities in Eastern Europe over the risks of a fourth Reich emerging as a result of the reunification.
Lohkamp also said that West Germany provided East Germany financial aids to the tune of 1.3 trillion euros to lift up its economic development at par with that in West Germany, something that has failed to happen.
Lohkamp also said that West Germany provided East Germany financial aids to the tune of 1.3 trillion euros to lift up its economic development at par with that in West Germany, something that has failed to happen.
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