Lessons from German Unification for European Integration? A Conceptual Approach

German unification and European integration represent two separate though related unification processes with some remarkably comparable features, but also with some distinctively different characteristics. German and European integration differ in the speed and extent of transformation engendered: in just a few years, it is expected that the economic system of the former GDR will have been transformed into the so-called ‘social market economy’. European integration, while its completion is likely to take longer, also reaches for a new qualitative dimension, but, quite different from East Germany’s transformation, Europe’s essential underlying economic principles of operation will remain almost entirely in place. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.