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10.11.04, 10:11
online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB...hoo_hs&ru=yahoo
We wczorajszym artykule Wall Street Journal pod tytułem "Eastern Europe
Eclipses East Germany", można przeczytać m.in. następujący fragment:
"Instead, each region has confounded expectations. After painful
restructuring and despite a host of problems, the Central Europeans are
enjoying rapid economic growth. Berlin and eastern Germany are stuck in a
slump with no end in sight.
The German and Polish capitals reflect the regions' contrasting fortunes.
Both cities sprawl to the horizon on Europe's northern plain, their long tree-
lined boulevards cutting through a mix of monuments and concrete apartment
blocks. Both were all but destroyed in World War II, a bloodstained history
that left deep scars in each. For both Berlin and Warsaw, the end of the Cold
War was the chance for a new beginning. Yet, while Berlin has evolved into a
cultural center, a Bohemian hive of artists, actors and writers, Warsaw has
become a bustling center of business. After dark, Warsaw's skyline lights up
in a blaze of neon, promoting the foreign companies that have have set up
shop there (...). Over the past 15 years, downtown Warsaw has gone from
having almost no commercial office space to 1.8 million square meters (19.4
million square feet), 90% of it occupied. Berlin had a harder time luring
business, despite its best efforts. (...) In the early 1990s, Berlin's city
planners thought German and international companies would flock to the
reunited city and that the population would zoom to five million. (...) 1.7
million square meters (18.3 million square feet) of office space stand empty -
- almost as much as Warsaw has built. The city's population has slipped 1% to
3.4 million since the Wall fell. Private-sector investment in eastern Germany
has been in decline since 1995. (...)
Unlike Warsaw, Berlin lacks a vibrant economy in its surrounding region for
the city to service. Warsaw has become the center for finance and other
services in Poland, which many foreign companies see as a fast-growing
domestic market as well as a low-cost place to produce goods for sale across
the European Union. Berlin, meanwhile, is surrounded by the former communist
East Germany, which has suffered from what the German government's own
experts on the matter say was the wrong strategy for transforming it into a
market economy. (...) Eastern Germany today is still on life support that has
totaled €1.25 trillion ($1.62 trillion) of government transfers since the
Wall's fall. (...)"
JAK TO MIŁO CZYTAĆ COŚ TAKIEGO...