German unity, European integration and the future of the federal system: Revival or permanent loss of substance?

Abstract

The widening of economic disparities between the West German Lander and the deepening of European integration in the 1980s presented increasing challenges to the procedures of cooperative conflict resolution which had come to dominate — and guarantee the position of the Lander in ‐ the federal system since the 1960s. These challenges have been made far more severe by the incorporation of the five new Lander into the federal system in 1990 and the further deepening of European integration proposed at Maastricht: German unity and the proposals of Maastricht have reinforced existing dimensions of conflict in the federal system and created new ones, in particular in inter‐Lander relations, which reduce the likelihood of a revival of a genuinely cooperative decision‐making and problem‐solving process. A review of the central themes developed in this collection points rather to an alternative scenario of a divided Lander community increasingly unable to maintain the degree of solidarity necessary to provide an adequate counterweight to the federation.