At this time, I would also like to expressly acknowledge President Mikhail Gorbachev’s contribution to German unification. Many people showed us a great deal of trust in the time leading up to German unification. Our policies are and will remain guided by our wish to maintain and strengthen that trust and – I would also like to say – to prove worthy of it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, high expectations have been placed on us Germans. After unification, this is truer than ever before. Whether we can meet these expectations and fulfill our responsibility in the world depends in particular on the economic success of our businesses – our employers and employees – and all the other groups in our society. Economic success – I want to say this explicitly – is not a goal in and of itself, and we do not see economic strength as an independent objective. But strong economic performance is a necessary prerequisite for affluence and social welfare in all of Germany, for effective environmental protection, and for the aid that we can provide beyond our borders and which is expected of us. Only a solid economic foundation creates the capacity for political, economic, and social action, at home and abroad.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the coming months and years, one goal must be given high priority – for me it has the highest priority – and that is to create equal living conditions for all Germans throughout the country. We can only achieve this goal by working together. This requires that all citizens – economic decision-makers, collective bargaining partners, the federal government, the federal states and communities – show solidarity and a sense of responsibility for the whole nation. It is a task for all Germans. Everyone can appreciate the difficulty of this task. In-depth studies and analyses have confirmed our fears: the legacy of forty years of Socialism and Communism in the former GDR is a profound burden. Many companies and products are not competitive; there is high unemployment, massive destruction of the environment, deteriorated buildings, and a decrepit infrastructure – after taking stock of the situation, this is one side of the coin.
On the other side, we find the will of the people to start anew and rebuild, as well as the economic strength of a unified Germany. I am certain that this is a foundation upon which we can carry out these massive efforts and persevere. The Social Market Economy offers an excellent set of starting conditions for that – conditions that we wish to continue preserving and developing in the years to come. Our awareness of the roots of freedom and prosperity has been strengthened in large part by the historic upheavals in Germany and Europe. Wherever people truly have a choice, they vote resolutely for the Social Market Economy as a liberal economic and social order. This will was impressively confirmed in the concluding document of the CSCE economic conference in Bonn in the spring of 1990. In it, all of the signatory states from both East and West underscored the indissoluble connection between economic and political freedom. It was on this basis that our policies in Western Germany – combined with the great motivation of all – led to an unprecedented level of economic dynamism and social security.
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