Political Developments

SINCE UNIFICATION IN OCTOBER 1990, the new Federal Republic has established a political life comparable in many respects to that of most Western democracies. Following the election in 1998, there took place for the first time the kind of change of government that is normal in such democratic societies when the electorate, grown weary with Helmut Kohl, made possible a new coalition between the SPD and the Greens, a decision confirmed by a hair's breadth in 2002. Unlike previous occasions, there was in 1998 a complete break, with no element of continuity in the shape of the FDP, as when the main government party changed from CDU to SPD in 1969 or vice versa in 1982. However, this element of continuity was restored following the very tight election of 2005 when the only practical solution was a Grand Coalition between the two major parties, albeit under a CDU chancellor — Angela Merkel, the first woman to hold this office.

Regardless of who was in government, following unification the Federal Republic faced a variety of issues, the difficulties of which helped to bring down Kohl and thereafter made life far from easy for his successor Gerhard Schröder. One of the most pressing undoubtedly was that of unemployment. By early 2005, the official figure for unemployment stood at over five million, with the full employment associated with the economic miracle seemingly only a distant memory.