More joint economic projects: Unity East

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Rolls-Royce factory in Dahlewitz, Brandenburg: "Jump on the megatrends"

Photo: Ralf Hirschberger / picture alliance / dpa

For six wild years Johannes Ludewig toured the new countries.

As Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Eastern Representative, the economist was supposed to save nationally owned companies from collapse after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Now Ludewig, now 75 years old, is sitting in Berlin-Mitte, the sun is reflected in the Spree, and the pensioner is sullenly chopping his pikeperch fillet.

This whole complaint and the backwardness excite him: "If you always look in the rear-view mirror, at some point you will hit the wall."

Back then, his boss Helmut Kohl looked into the future and, as is well known, discovered blooming landscapes there.

But three decades after the historical experiment began to turn a planned economy into a market economy, the East has still lagged behind.

Calculated per employed person, none of the new federal states achieves the economic strength of the old federal states - not even that of the Saarland.

At the same time, the billions in the solidarity pact have expired, lignite mining is being wound up, and the East German economy is also slipping into the corona recession.

So the prospects are gloomy?

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