Germany is united but Europe has failed to integrate

In 2005 Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described the demise of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”, a statement that President Dmitry Medvedev has declined to endorse.

Yesterday world leaders and about 100,000 revellers gathered at the Brandenburg Gate to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall that led to break-up of the communist bloc.

On Sunday, Putin gave a frank interview with a Russian television channel to reflect on his years spent as a KGB agent in the East German city of Dresden. His comments were illuminating.

“I still remember the warmth and cordiality,” he said. “I am very thankful for this. In this respect there is some feeling of nostalgia.”

In yesterday’s Gulf Times Michael Meyer, Newsweek’s bureau chief in Germany and Eastern Europe at the time, wrote that the eventual reunification of the Federal Republic was achieved with more than an element of luck.

He recounted how the announcement to relax travel restrictions was made public a day before scheduled and that Egon Krenz, the Communist head of the German Democratic Republic, called the decision a ‘botch’.

So, as the word spread, instead of an orderly trickle of travellers queuing at checkpoints there was a tide of humanity with the single aim to destroy Europe’s most infamous landmark.

Putin described the Berlin Wall as “unnatural and unreal” and blamed the West for carving up the capital after World War Two. “Soviet diplomacy never set the task of the division of Germany,” he said.

However, he did concede that Russia’s relations with a unified Germany – Chancellor Angela Merkel grew up behind the Iron Curtain – had never been stronger and that was one of the positive aspects of the events of November 9 1989. He was right and Europe has become a more stable continent as a result.

But as Merkel was warning yesterday that the unification process of east and west remains far from complete President Medvedev also spoke about the collective failures of integration in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine.

“We were hoping the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact would be accompanied by a different degree of Russia’s integration into common European space. What have we received as a result? Nato is still a bloc whose rockets are targeting the Russian territory,” he said.

When the eastern bloc was dismantled Moscow received assurances that Nato would not expand eastward but the alliance, backed by the United States, continues to court several former Soviet satellite states.

Those leaders in Berlin yesterday who want to extend their influence close to Russia’s borders would be wise to weigh up the consequences of antagonising the Kremlin. Two decades on from an historic day that shocked the world, the prospect of a unified “greater” Europe remains no more than a mirage.