International Reports 9/2010

Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall friends borderGermany. Reunification was a success, not only in Germanybut also in Europe. Reunified Germany’s relations with itsneighbors are built on trust and Germany’s role as a partnerin Europe is viewed as downright positive. The Europeanproject has established about democracy, prosperity, andsecurity following hundreds of years of military disputesand two world wars. Instead of disrupting or slowing thisprocess, the reunification of Germany spurred this processon.

by Gerhard Wahlers

Adam Michnik, the former campaigner and editor of the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, the largest newspaper in Poland, said of the most recent Polish presidential elections, held on July 04, 2010, that he was pleased that Poland was finally rid of the “evil specter of the IVth Republic.” In fact, the victory of Bronisław Komorowski, the liberal-conservative candidate standing for the “Civic Platform”, over his national-conservative opponent, Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the largest opposition party “Law and Justice”, means that the political reform project of the IVth Republic has now been shelved.

by Stephan Georg Raabe

Measuring 811 kilometers in length, the border with the Czech Republic is Germany’s second-longest external border. For 40 years it separated the Federal Republic and the country formerly known as Czechoslovakia, not only in territorial terms, but also primarily with respect to politics, culture, the economy and ideology. The Czech Republic and Slovakia have since gone their separate ways. Meanwhile, the relations of both countries with Germany, have changed for the better, but there is room for improvement in several areas.

by Hubert Gehring, Tomislav Delinić, Andrea Zeller

There is no doubting the fact that relations between Germany and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are both good and close. Germany’s new minister for foreign affairs, Guido Westerwelle, also leaves no room for doubt as to the particular quality of the relations. Shortly after taking office in the fall of 2009 he met his opposite numbers from the Baltic states in Brussels for consultations which subsequently continued in July 2010 in Tallinn in the traditional 3 + 1 format.

by Andreas Michael Klein, Gesine Herrmann

Germany and France are connected with one another in many ways through close-knit networks. This is just as true for the political, economic and institutional spheres as it is at the levels of culture and civil society. Political cooperation between the two, with its comprehensive array of mechanisms for coordination and collaboration, is of a kind not seen anywhere else in the world. The two neighboring countries are mutually intertwined to a depth unsurpassed by any other states.

by Joerg Wolff, Laura-Theresa Jaspers

German reunification was viewed with skepticism in Great Britain, especially by the media. Since 1990 relations have repeatedly fluctuated between Great Britain and Germany. The causes for these fluctuations were the different administrations and their distinctive leaders, the influence of both their own and external perceptions of their countries, and above all the prospect of a political union in the form of the European project.

by Claudia Crawford

The foundation in July 2008 of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) has given rise to new creative opportunities to reshape multilateral European-Mediterranean relations.The occasion of UfM’s second anniversary has prompted the following questions: What effects has the union had? What should its future direction be? The author advises to acknowledge the lack of alternatives to regional and trans-regional cooperation.

by Gerrit F. Schlomach

On May 10, 2010, elections were held in the Philippines. The president, vice president, the first chamber of parliament, half of the 24 senators (second chamber of parliament), the governors of the 80 provinces, and the mayors and council members of the cities and municipalities of the country were elected into office. Presidential elections take place every six years in a political system that is broadly modeled on the political system of its former American colonial ruling power. The presidential elections represent a decisive point in Filipino politics for the following reasons.

by Peter Köppinger

By having a referendum in the spring, President Alvaro Uribe had hoped to enable himself to be re-elected once again. The resulting dispute has marked political developments in Colombia since late 2008, as there was hardly any discussion of practical politics. According to national estimates, there was little doubt that Uribe would be elected by a vast majority in the first round of elections. He had been in office since 2002, and his new candidacy dangled like a sword of Damocles over every party’s strategic considerations for selecting candidates.

by Stefan Jost