ABSTRACT
In the last two years, Germany has become the key partner for the successor states of the Soviet Union, at least in terms of shares in the respective export markets. This development is, however, accompanied by declining volumes of trade, a dramatic debt crisis of the new economies, and growing perplexity of the outside world in view of the decay of governmental controls.
German trade performance has to be seen from two sides: (a) ties of West-Germany established before unification which until mid-1991 implied a tolerable risk and (b) the involvement of the former GDR which has become a real headache for the Bonn government. German businesses, which had expected consistent efforts in the CIS states to lay the foundation for market-based, viable economies are deeply frustrated. Particularly the traditional partners of the U.S.S.R. in the new German Länder are in trouble. Pressures are building on the government in Bonn for additional measures to cushion the impact of a serious crisis in trade with the former Soviet Union.
The issue of assistance to the new states, in the short run for establishing functioning administration and viable economic structures, in the longer term for transition to market mechanisms and integration into the world economy, keeps a prominent place in the agenda of German foreign policy. It is argued, however, that the common interests of Western industrial states and the risks of de-stabilization in the former Soviet Union call for consistently joint Western efforts. The Munich summit has failed to come up with a workable concept.
