ABSTRACT
The Germans themselves are less sanguine about their own national prospects. German reunification, coupled with the collapse of the Soviet sphere in Eastern Europe and the imminent breakup of the Soviet Union itself, has thrust Germany onto the center of the European stage as a potential economic and political superpower. Trade plays a more important role in Germany than in any other major industrialized nation, including Japan. Competitively, at the beginning of the 1990s Germany was relatively strong in all major established industrial sectors. Large industrial groups also play an important role in German industry. German politics has been dominated by two large centrist parties, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, each of which has held political power for a substantial period during the postwar era. Germany embraces the concept of free trade, and as a result, there is little in the way of an identifiable German national trade policy.
