Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel on the occasion of the Day of German Unity
in Saarbrücken
Dear Mr. President,
Lady Köhler,
dear Mr. President of the Bundestag,
Mr. President of the Bundesrat,
dear Mr. President of the Federal Constitutional Court,
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen
from parliaments,
ladies and gentlemen!
The year 2009 is a year of historic milestones. We have 1 September this year commemorates the beginning of World War 70 years ago. We have 23 May 60 and 60 years constitution Federal Republic of Germany celebrated. And we will in a few weeks, on 9 November, 20 years fall celebration.
The 3rd October of 2009, the 19th Anniversary of German Unity, joins in the memory of the turbulent and emotionally charged in 1989 - a year of a collapsing GDR, a marveled at the beginning and then very cohesive old Federal Republic, a year of tumbling events, starting with the local elections in May 1989 in the former GDR, the establishment of civil rights movements of thousands of refugees ü via Hungary and Czechoslovakia were trying to reach the West, a year of negotiating skills of the former Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, a year in which people got to know yourself again, had courage, they are who might not have expected, a year that has made history. Many
from us or even all of us can tell of experiences in this regard. Especially impressed me this year, the history of the border officials, on the Hungarian border was doing its job, as on 19 August 1989 took place in the Pan-European Picnic. The Hungarians were already then travel to the West. For them, the few hours during the opening of borders nothing special. But nearly 700 tourists from the former East Germany, which took note of trying to use those few hours to come to Austria. The border officers of course had no permit, by allowing these people. He could not reach his superiors, but he had his gun stuck in his uniform and left the people through - even at the risk of being punished the next day.
have behaved this way, thousands and thousands. Now they have made history, ladies and gentlemen. And they became the German standard. It is not totally unexpected, but is the result of a long process. It is the result of courage, determination and courage. The people in the former East Germany have paved their way past the courage to German Unity. Thousands have gone for the first time on the road for the first time have a poster painted on his first visit to a church.
we were supported by partners in the West, in Europe, the United States of America. And we were also supported by our neighbors to the east. For without the reformers to Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia, without the Solidarity union in Poland, without the organizers of the Pan-European Picnic or not the policy of Mikhail Gorbachev, who, with glasnost and perestroika, the window wide open in his country this would not have been possible.
These incredible events in my view, have a common origin: the longing for freedom. Freiheit ist das kostbarste Gut. Diese Sehnsucht konnte in Jahrzehnten nicht ausgelöscht werden, sie hat sich Bahn gebrochen und die Umwälzungen auf unserem Kontinent möglich gemacht. Die Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands am 3. Oktober 1990 bedeutete ja nichts anderes als einen Sieg von Freiheit und Demokratie über Diktatur und Unfreiheit. Der 3. Oktober 1990 bedeutete den Sieg einer marktwirtschaftlichen, freiheitlichen Ordnung über ein planwirtschaftliches System, das nicht funktionieren konnte. Der 3. Oktober 1990 bedeutete den Sieg von Partnerschaft und Freundschaft über Block-Konfrontation und Kriegsgefahr. Die Kraft von Freiheit und Demokratie – das ist es, was zählt. In this spirit we are celebrating the 19th 3rd time October.
Unification of Germany in 19 years. That means 19 years building power and solidarity in the east to the west of our country. That means for the elderly an entirely new phase of life, coupled with great success for many, but also some disappointment for others. That means the growth of a young generation, we can tell just from the past by a wall and barbed wire. Now it's time for a joint design of the future, because in those years, it has a special focus to the Future of our country and also to address global challenges.
In 2009, in a time where we have a global financial and economic crisis, we celebrate our German unit in a very specific context. The fall of U.S. bank Lehman Brothers is a symbol of a financial and economic crisis, as we had not seen for decades. This crisis has raised fundamental questions, such as questions about the sustainability of our economic activity and, above all, questions about the understanding of freedom. For the understanding of freedom as a living out of unrestrained greed of individuals, understanding of freedom as a system without rules, it has proved to have the wrong understanding. It has been found where it leads, if we understand freedom so that it goes to, above all, freedom from something. We have learned that freedom and responsibility go together: freedom with responsibility, freedom in an order of the social market economy, as we live in Germany, freedom in a state that occurs as the guardian of that order.
Ladies and gentlemen, is why it is so that the management of the international financial crisis at home, perhaps the first great common challenge of East Germans and West Germans. There are no textbooks, but that's another way into the open in a new age in which we should seize the opportunities of the crisis. This we can do - I am convinced - if we can get away from old conflicts behind us and define the main challenges clear.
course, strikes us as we look to our country, much of it is not what, in order: A shattered confidence in financial markets and also in parts of the economy due to the actions of individuals, a dramatically increased public debt and the burden on future generations, the toil, in which we conduct international negotiations - I am thinking in particular of the climate negotiations or the negotiations for a global free trade - and at many places the poverty of education, lack of vocational opportunities for children and young people arising therefrom, and the still unsatisfactory integration of immigrant families. But if we look closely, we see that perhaps these shortcomings, these challenges are that we can now help to create a new relationship, if we succeed in climb out the old trenches.
It is, of course, the economic base of our country to strengthen traditional industry structures while enhancing the development of a service economy. We need both and we need above all a commitment to the principles of social market economy. At the latest by the excesses in global financial markets everyone has noticed, the time, do not go together ostensibly in maximizing the benefits and ethical conduct in the economy is finally over. Who still does not understand, is not in the lesson learned that he must learn as a result of this crisis. Gone is the time to make war in the economic efficiency and environmental consideration for one another rather than together to develop new strengths.
We can make this situation a future situation for Germany. Germany is on the development of renewable energies, environmental technologies, energy efficiency and policy frameworks for climate and environmental pioneer. We are about to turn to reconcile ecology and economy of a championship. Even in education policy, the tone has fortunately changed. To an end the time in the ever recurring, but futile structure debates were more important than concrete policies to promote individuals, walked together in the desire for performance and social behavior do not alleged. Today we are working on common standards of education for diversity and academic quality in all of Germany. PISA has helped us.
That is so, we must leave old conflicts behind us. We have to focus on the forces of all of us, citizens and political parties, employers and trade unions, churches, associations and community groups together and to focus on the questions of the future. The bond that unites us, it must be that we accept no gaps, but are looking for ways to find solutions. In other words, we need a permanent productive unrest, as we have seen in 1989, almost every day in an incredible density.
I think we can do it, that we might have a permanently sustainable economy that our ability to innovate in competition with other countries will receive the world that we are the demographic Change are a reality and the republic of education can fully that we are working intensively on the development of European unification that we make audible than 500 million Europeans are our voice and our values \u200b\u200bin the world, and make new forms of global cooperation related. can For me, the past year with all the horrors and the gaze into the abyss of what economic cause, even a year of hope in which it has come to a completely new venture of 20 leading industrial nations, that we so in the history of the world still did not have.
One of the leading intellectual Köpfe Asiens, der Wissenschaftler und Publizist Kishore Mahbubani aus Singapur, schreibt in seinem Buch "Die Rückkehr Asiens" – ich zitiere: "In den letzten Jahrhunderten war der Westen, während er die Welt auf seinen Schultern trug, die bei weitem offenste und robusteste Kultur. Er war es, der den asiatischen Aufbruch in die Moderne ausgelöst hat. Deshalb sollte er über diese positive neue Tendenz der Weltgeschichte jubeln. Wir befinden uns in einem der formbarsten Momente der Weltgeschichte."
Vor 20 Jahren, als die Mauer fiel, und vor 19 Jahren, als die Deutsche Einheit Wirklichkeit wurde, waren wir Deutschen und Europäer uns einig, dass es unser Land und unser Kontinent waren, die in einem besonderen Moment unserer Geschichte Gestaltungskraft entwickelt haben. Wenn wir heute mit ein wenig Abstand auf die Ereignisse in den Jahren 1989 und 1990 schauen, dann stellen wir fest: Es handelte sich bei den damaligen Geschehnissen nicht um etwas Vergangenheitsbezogenes, nicht etwa um ein Ereignis, das eine Epoche abgeschlossen hat. Es handelte sich vielmehr um den Beginn einer neuen Zeit der Freiheit und Offenheit. Wir leben mitten in ihr.
20 Jahre später haben aber die Ereignisse der weltweiten Finanzkrise unseren Blick dafür geschärft, was passiert, wenn Freiheit und Offenheit nicht an Verantwortung gekoppelt bleiben. Jetzt we have to provide a new relationship of freedom to develop responsibility. I am firmly convinced that we can. I am firmly convinced that policy can make to that effect, based on the fundamental principle of our constitution ". The dignity of man inviolable" It's about ability, it's about maturity and it is about action and feeling of not-resignation to inadequate situations.
can create such a policy much. You can join forces, which hold our society. Such a policy provides for the aging society not as a burden on, but as a new design task. Such a policy is committed to a country where his responsibility before history and its strengths for the future. Germany has, if it was successful, understood as a future workshop. The Basic Law, the social market economy, the dual system of vocational education - all these were models that were inspirational to the whole world. In Germany, the first car was built, the computer invented, developed the aspirin. Of these innovations, we consume today. We need to build on and closely related we are.
It's about a prosperity that Labour secures and creates new work, work permits, the rise and self-development. But it's also just about everything. It's about a prosperity that is not measured only in euros and cents, but also on the creativity, is taught by our schools. It's about a prosperity that is calculated on the safety on our roads, the clean lakes in our landscapes, the commitment of our citizens' groups, the diversity of cultural life and the willingness of people in the neighborhood.
Ladies and gentlemen, in this sense, I hope that we of 3 October 1990 two main experiences in the future take: The force that emanates from the values of freedom, democracy and civic courage, and strength that can be in a race if it is determined to give these the values of.
I therefore wish our country for the next decade a lot of confidence in their abilities. I wish him the gratitude, humility, courage and confidence. I wish above all that we old antagonisms across as to develop common energy.
Thank you.
0 comments:
Post a Comment