A lot of continental Europe's economic difficulties can be linked to the fateful decision by Kohl to fold the ostmark into the DM at 1:1. It turned the full population of East Germany into Western consumers overnight, but it destroyed, no, it annihilated the whole industry of East Germany at the same time, and the country and its neighbors have been paying this decision ever since:

• the money spent by the East generated inflation, thus causing the Bundesbank to raise interest rates. France, the Netherlands and others had to follow at the worst time for them, thus triggering the 1993 recession, the nasties in a long time;

• the loss of employment in East Germany was massive, thus leading to the feelings of inadequacy and resentment described by PeWi above, and forcing the West to provide massive financial social transfers - and these continue to this day. Thus the East became a drain economically speaking, and never recovered enough

• that effort drained Germany's economy, dragging its neighbors down with it (not as much, but some)

The Bundesbank compounded that by refusing to let the DM slowly devaluate prior to the entry in the euro, which would have been the best thing for all. So Germany had to additionally sweat the overvaluation through the stangnation of wages - and thus of consumption, compounding the problem.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes