2134/15472 Jeremy Leaman Jeremy Leaman The economic legacy of German unification Loughborough University 2014 Germany European Union Politics Economics Political Science not elsewhere classified 2014-08-08 10:27:09 Educational resource https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/educational_resource/The_economic_legacy_of_German_unification/9468086 The purpose of this module is to introduce you to the economic problems associated with German unification and to the broader issues relating to Germany in Europe. With some 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the largest state in the new Europe. It is geographically central and has borders with nine other countries. It is the core economy of the region, of the European Union and of the newly formed Eurozone; it represents 38 percent of total demand within the EU, it is the major trading partner of every other member of the EU and far and away the biggest trading partner of the emerging states of central and Eastern Europe. What happens to the German economy affects every other economy in Europe, directly or indirectly. The current weaknesses of the Eurozone are in no small measure a result of the particular feebleness of Germany’s recent record of growth. One of the major factors contributing to this poor pattern of growth is the economic burden taken on by the Federal Republic in uniting the economies of East and West Germany. It is therefore important to examine Germany’s economic development over the first dozen or so years of unity to gauge both the domestic and international effects of unification.