INTERNATIONAL

Chance to Rebuild the German Economy

With the collapse of Nationalist Socialist Rule in 1945, Germany was liberated from more than 12 years of dictatorship. Yet, it was a long and often difficult road that Germany had to travel before it was able to find its present role in the world.

The Federal republic of Germany was founded as a parliamentary democracy on May 23, 1949. Its constitution is known as the Basic Law.

Germany's Basic Law prohibits any efforts to do away with the country's free democratic basic order, drawing on the most important lesson learned from the Weimar constitution, the democratic constitution which the Nationalist Socialist regime abrogated. Politicians such as the Federal Republic's first President,Theodor Heuss, FDP, its first chancellor, Konrad Adeneur, CDU, the father of West Germany's economic miracle, Ludwig Erhard, CDU, as well as major opposition leaders from the SPD, such as Kurt Schumacher, Erich Ollenhauer, and Carlo Schmid, played a decisive role in strengthening democracy in the Federal republic of German.

The 1950s in the new state were marked by reconstruction. During these years, the federal government under chancellor Adeneur set a foreign policy course, which has continued to apply to all German politics upto the present: The country's reconciliation with the former enemies and its integration into the international community of states.

This includes its transatlantic partnership with the USA and the building of a common Europe. The FRG's accession to NATO in May 1955 was the most important roadmark in the development of its transatlantic partnership. The FRG was also granted sovereignty at that time.

From 1955 on, the western alliance constituted the definitive framework to German security and defense policy and concomitantly served as a vital guidepost for German foreign policy.

The founding of the European coal and Steel Community in 1952 and the signing of the treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, EEC, and the European Atomic Energy Community, EURATOM, in March 1957, laid the foundation for the creation of a common European market and led to the European Union in November 1993.

The original member of six member states, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, were expanded into a union of 15 states on January 1, 1995. The initial economic community has not only evolved into the largest market in the world, it has-through the Maastricht treaty-also become an association that makes it possible for Europe to take common action in a number of political fields.

Reconciliation with France and the payment of reparations to the Jewish people were particularly important to chancellor Adeneur. He and France's President de Gaulle gave Franco-German cooperation a special preferential basis by signing the Elysee treaty in January 1963.

Despite the strict demarcation between the nations of the Warsaw pact and the West-which took its most dramatic form in the construction of the Berlin wall on August 13, 1961-prudent national interest demanded that the Federal republic seek a political dialogue with the Soviet Union as the leading power in Eastern Europe. In September 1955, the two states established diplomatic relations.

The primary aim of Willy Brandt's eastern policy was to improve the Republic's relations with the nations of the Eastern block and to make the consequences of Germany's division more tolerable for the people involved. Elected chancellor in 1969, Brandt met with the Prime Minister of the GDR, Willy Stoph, for the first time in March 1970.

A treaty renouncing the use of force and recognizing the status quo was signed in Moscow in August of that same year. In a letter on German unity, which was handed over to the Soviet government at the same time, the federal government stated the treaty did not conflict with the aim of achieving a state of peace in Europe "in which the German Nation will recover its unity in free self-determination".

December 1970 saw the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw in which the Federal Republic confirmed the inviolability of the existing border, the Oder-Neisse line. In the treaty on the Basis of Relations between the FRG and the GDR of December 1971, the two Germanys agreed to renounce the threat of force against one another, recognize the inviolability of their common border, and respect each others' independence and autonomy. A further non-aggression treaty-the Treaty of Prague-was signed by the then Czechoslovakia and the FRG in December 1973.

An important milestone in the efforts undertaken towards international détente since the early 1970s was the signing of the Final Act of Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, CSCE, in Helsinki in 1975. By signing the CSCE Final Act, the 35 signatory states agreed to recommendations for the promotion of détente, economic cooperation, freedom of movement across borders, and respect for human rights.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, the new general secretary of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev, played a decisive role in establishing détente in East-West relations. In contrast, other Warsaw Pact states, including the then GDR, insisted on steering a resolute delimitation course.

Despite this situation, further intra-German agreements were subsequently signed. These included agreements in cultural exchange and environmental protection fields. The first sister cities between the Federal republic of Germany and the GDR were established in 1986.

The Helsinki principles and the political opening under Gorbachev were primary factors that fueled ever-louder calls among many people in the then GDR for greater permissiveness and political freedom in the late 1980s. The growing discrepancy between the people in the GDR and the government in East Berlin was particularly obvious in October 1989 when the government officially celebrated the country's 40th anniversary while thousands protested in Leipzig against the regime, chanting "We are the people".

The Berlin wall fell on November 9, 1989. Even Erich Honecker's resignation as head of state and head of the Socialist Unity Party shortly thereafter could save neither the regime nor the state.

Peaceful revolution in the GDR cleared the way for German unity. chancellor Helmut khol was mindful of pushing the unification process forward within the framework of Europe-wide developments,in very close coordination with the Federal republic's partners in the European union and with in the nations involved in the CSCE process.

This was reflected by the fact that negotiations on the on the Unification Treaty between the new, freely elected government of the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany. German unity was subsequently restored on October 3,1990.

Following German unification and the enormous geopolitical changes arising from the end of the eastern Bloc system, German and, with it , its partners were faced with entirely new challenges, namely:

# Rebuilding the economy in Germany's new states and bringing German unity to culmination with the

Establishment of culmination with the establishment of comparable living condition in eastern and       

Western Germany.

# Developing Europe progressively into a political union.

# Establishing an architecture for global peace and security.

Economic reconstruction in Eastern Germany was accompanied by the Federal Republic is being celebrated- Germany will push for the admission of further countries into the community.

Decisive prerequisites for the later accession of the 10 nations of Central and Eastern Europe and Cyprus will be established with the adoption of Agenda 2000, the Eus reform program for its future financial, agricultural, and regional policy. Fifty years after its founding, Germanyis one of the world's most stable democracies and a country that lives up to its international responsibilities. (Text courtesy: Made in Germany, Vol. xvii, No 4, 1999).

A Cyber University in Brittany

-Stephanie Rouget, France

The world of education and training are bound to be 'confronted' with the new technologies of information and communication. They are one of the economic and social challenges of the coming years. All aspects of education are concerned. Virtual universities and distance teaching lie at the heart of this reflection. In September 1999, in Brittany, the President of the university of Rennes I launched his plan for a cyber university.

Distance teaching is not a new idea. Indeed, it existed for more than a century in developed countries, thanks to the use of the post-office and to the exchange of mail between teachers and pupils. A few years later, radio and television made it possible to go a step further by contributing sound and pictures. In 1937, the Paris University of Sorbonne launched Radio-Sorbonne, followed in the 60s by other universities in Paris and in the provinces. Educational television was also tried at this time with Tele-CNAM, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, a prestigious school of science and technology) in 1963 and Tele-Promotion-Rural in 1996, a project by UNESCO to introduce educational television in developing countries as a medium for mass education.

In France, the CNED (Center National d' Enseignement a' Distance. National distance teaching center) has, since the early Forties, being one of the main proponents of distance training. This organization has based most of its know-how on teaching by correspondence. However, distance teaching only started to become interested in the new technologies of information and communication as pedagogical tools and means of transmitting knowledge less than a dozen years ago whereas the Internet is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

The virtual campus, an idea, which is gaining, ground

The concept of a virtual university or a virtual campus came into being in Canada. The need to reduce distances in miles between the various campuses of the same university combined with strong desire to develop the new technologies of information and communication placed the Canadians in the vanguard of distance teaching.

In France, the CNED has created its electronic campus, and universities are also starting to become interested in this idea.

The President of the University of the Rennes I, Brittany, Patrick Navatte, recently presented a plan for 'a virtual university' in Brittany within the next two to three years. One of its purposes is to keep students who sign on at foreign universities to the detriment of universities in Brittany. Indeed, in 1999, for the second consecutive year, the Faculty of Rennes registered a six- percent fall in the number of new enrolments.

Patrick Navatte points out the flexibility of the work that is new kind of teaching could offer while, at the same time, presenting a fix time table of lectures. "If a person wants to study at 10 o'clock at night, in July and not in September, on Sunday and not on Monday, he will be able to do so with the virtual university which allows students to learn from home on the simple condition that they have a computer connected to the Internet", Patrick Navatte pointed out.

Working groups are at present reflecting on the training of lectures, on the contents of the courses and on the pedagogical methods with a view to creating this university of the future.

Indeed, this implies big changes in the way the lecture work, as they will be called upon outside the normal hours of lectures. Lecturers at the University of Rennes I who wish so, have since October 1999, been able to follow a course on ' the creation of interactive lectures on line'.

The project brings together the universities of Rennes I and II and all the Faculties in Brittany. These universities will meet at summer school in July 2000 to discuss progress being made on the project.