Germany: Poor Western Cities Fed Up with Funding East

from Der Spiegel:



Closed swimming pools, potholed streets, run-down buildings. Many western German cities, especially in the industrial Ruhr rust belt, are looking worse for wear after years of neglect in which they've had to transfer billions funds to help rebuild the former communist east. Now their mayors want to stop paying.

The mayors of highly indebted industrial cities in western Germany have demanded an end to transfer payments to the former communist east, insisting that more than 20 years after unification, the task of building up the eastern economy and infrastructure has been completed.

Eastern Germany is to receive a total of €156 billion ($206 billion) in financial help over the period 2005 until 2019 under the Solidarity Pact II program which obliges the national and regional governments as well as municipalities to make payments regardless of their own financial situation.

In the industrial Ruhr region of western German, which has been struggling to make ends meet for years as a result of the decline of its traditional coal and steel industries, the transfers have forced cities to run up major debts. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,822473,00.html