lation.
The unemployment rate, while still high at over 9%, dropped in August to its lowest level since 1995. The reduction in unemployment, however, was registered primarily in the former West German states. The rates in eastern and western Germany remained critically far apart; in August the unemployment figures were 17% in the east but only 7.4% in the west.
The sustained weakness of the Deutsche Mark and the euro was troubling. The new European currency had been launched on Jan. 1, 1999, at an exchange rate of about $1.17 to the euro amid boasts by European statesmen that it would rival the U.S. dollar in strength and stability. It traded at well under $0.90 for much of the year. Rather than try to talk up the euro, Schröder affected disinterest in September, for which the market rewarded him with an all-time low. As signs of U.S. economic weakness became evident in December, the euro showed signs of modest recovery.
The “Green Card”—the English-language term that Germans used to name a plan to provide visas to 20,000 foreign computer engineers urgently needed to augment the country’s high-tech labour force—attracted much attention during the year. Germany had a high unemployment rate, and fully 9% of the population of the country was already defined as foreigners, so this was a question that occasioned intense economic and social debates. The law passed in the parliament in July, however, and within the first month, 1,360 work permits were granted to computer specialists from India, Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Romania. They were hired primarily by smaller German companies.
Two ecological issues figured prominently in the German economy during the year. First was the “eco-tax,” a law that had entered into force in April 1999 and called for taxes on gasoline to rise by 6 pfennigs a litre (about 10 cents a gallon) each year until 2003. Steep fuel-price rises in 2000 reignited opposition. Demonstrations, especially among truckers, put pressure on the coalition to backtrack on the eco-tax, but the government held its ground, insisting that the revenues would finance important ecological projects designed for the long-term well-being of Germany. Second, after nearly two years of tumultuous debate, the government decided in June that the commercial use of nuclear power in Germany would end within 20 years. The timetable was disappointing to the Greens, who had fought for a much earlier end to nuclear power.AD!!!!
The question of enlarging the EU came to a boil in May following an address by Joschka Fischer, who spoke, however, not as German foreign minister but as a private citizen. His message was that Europe needed to be closer to its citizens. Fischer proposed a second chamber, a senate, for the European Parliament that would represent the national legislatures of member states. In addition, he urged reforms of the European Commission, suggesting that instead of commissioners being appointed by national governments, they should be actual members of national governments or people directly elected to the position of commissioner by national electorates.
In September Günter Verheugen, EU commissioner for enlargement, mused about the possibility of putting the question of EU expansion to the German people in the form of a referendum. This was controversial because the constitutionality of referenda had been long debated in the Federal Republic of Germany (they were often used during the Nazi period). Verheugen opened up the question of the right of a citizen of an EU member state to participate directly in EU decisions—a right Germans had not enjoyed, for example, in the voting on the single European currency, although the electorates in France and other European countries did express their will.
Greater German participation in world affairs was at the heart of Schröder’s speech before the UN at the Millennium Summit in September. He reiterated in plain terms his country’s wish to assume a seat on the UN Security Council, stating that “should the number of permanent members be increased Germany would be prepared