GERMANY-POLITICS: Bonn Still Recovering From ‘Berlin Decision’

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ramesh Jaura

BONN, Nov 9 1994 (IPS) - Five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city of Bonn is still struggling hard to reconcile itself to the loss of the prestigious status as the capital of post-war west Germany.

Since the unification of two Germanys on Oct. 3, 1990, Berlin is officially the federal capital, though the parliament (Bundestag) and government continue to be in Bonn.

However, unless the new Bundestag, constituting itself Thursday in Berlin, revokes the outgoing parliament’s decision, the parliament and the government, excepting a few ministries and some other institutions, would move to Berlin.

“If the federal president, parliament, chancellor and the foreign office are in Berlin, there is no point in our staying back,” said an African diplomat on condition of anonymity.

Though, it is precisely the African and other Third World diplomatic missions, the authorities would like to stay on in Bonn. And they very well might if Germany’s Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) does not shift to Berlin.

“With diplomats, parliamentarians and government officials moving to Berlin, Bonn’s population — of 300,000 — will be thinned out and the city left behind as a sleepy university town with a few pubs downtown and old villas on the other end,” said Martin Kricke, a shop owner.

“And this would cost quite some jobs,” he added.

The authorities want to avoid such a situation arising, particularly as Germany’s largest populated state, North-Rhine Westfalia (NRW), in which Bonn is located, has one of the highest unemployment rates — 9.3 percent — in the country.

With this in view, concerted attempts were made to have the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) shifted from New York to Bonn. But in vain.

Equally fruitless were efforts to have the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which would succeed the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) next year, moved from Geneva to Bonn.

These attempts having failed, the NRW government headed by Johannes Rau — one of the seniormost German political leaders — has been negotiating hard with the federal government to get Bonn a compensation for losing the capital status.