Germany marked 10 years as one nation with celebrations across the country yesterday and a call from the last leader of the former East Germany to solve the problem of the "inner unity of Germany".
At the official ceremony in the eastern city of Dresden, President Jacques Chirac of France congratulated Germany on the success of reunification, saying the historic event 10 years ago had "opened the way for the unity of our entire continent".
Addressing over 1,000 guests that included eastern European leaders and the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, Mr Chirac praised the former chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, as someone who would go down in history as "a great German and a great European man of vision".
Dr Kohl (70) was not asked to speak at the official ceremonies because of controversy about his involvement in a party-financing scandal. Rather than sit in the audience, the former chancellor decided to stay away.
President Johannes Rau also paid tribute to the former chancellor. "He is not taking part in our festivities today, but the achievements of Helmut Kohl in achieving German unification can not be detracted from," he said.
Mr Rau went on to say that Germany should never again become a country where people were "hunted".
In a blemish on celebrations, a Dusseldorf synagogue was firebombed on Monday night, while vandals daubed swastikas on a memorial in the Buchenwald concentration camp museum. Along with a skinhead attack on a Russian immigrant couple in the eastern town of Schwerin, these were sobering reminders of Germany's ever-present past.
The process of unification in Germany is not yet over, according to Mr Lothar de Maiziere, the first and last freely-elected leader of East Germany.
"Ten years ago the people of East Germany began a process of transformation that has challenged them unendingly," he said in Dresden yesterday, adding that Germans should devote the next decade to solving the east-west mentality that was hampering inner German unity.
Berlin was the focus of world attention 10 years ago as the two Germanys united. Yesterday the streets once divided by the Berlin Wall were filled with Berliners enjoying a street festival.
Mr Chirac also used his keynote speech in Dresden to reaffirm EU commitment to eastward expansion by 2003.
"Don't doubt our determination, have no fear of the future. The expansion will come and it will succeed," he said, addressing countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic which he said were very close to entry.
But Mr Chirac warned that negotiating a successful path to expansion would require care and reform of EU institutions so as not to weaken the existing union.
He highlighted the friendly relationship and close co-operation that exists between Germany and France, which currently holds the EU Presidency.
The co-operation would continue to bear fruit, he said, and provide "the means to strengthen the now-reconciled Europe".
The Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, said the expansion of the EU was a direct consequence of German unification.
He said that Germany owed a debt to prospective EU countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic, which 11 years ago accepted thousands of people who fled over their borders from the former East Germany.
