GERMANY AND THE EC - REALISM AND RESPONSIBILITY

The article compares the place of realism and responsibility as motivations for Germany's policy toward the European Community (EC) before 1989 and after. It argues that while the context and style have changed, there remains basic continuity in Germany's EC policy. Germany is characterized as interdependent partner and not as dominant leader or preoccupied spoiler in the EC. The assessment of continuity and partnership assumes that promotion of national interest, together with the pursuit of integration as an ideal, has been a fundamental element since the early 1950s and not a motive suddenly discovered with German unification. The full range of Germany's goals in the EC-economic, political, cultural and societal, regional, international-is examined.