Monitor

All the News of the World German reaction to the opening of the Reichstag in Berlin

WHITE-WASHED GERMAN unity: What should one measure achievement by, if not the original plan? After 10 years, the stock-taking still, even now, has the prefix "interim". Unity for Germany has not yet been fully achieved. Gerhard Schroder is prone to white-washing situations in East Germany. Just like someone who is playing the lottery, he talks about his ticket, comforting himself with the hope that perhaps some small miracle may happen. What has been achieved up to now is not impressive; not when measured against original intentions. Schroder was offered the chance to change this with the Reichstag building, but he preferred to stick to Helmut Kohl's optimism.

Berliner Zeitung

BERLIN IS not simply an enormous conglomeration of cranes and diggers. Politically it also resembles a workshop or building site. The rest of the Republic of Germany will be watching to see that federalism is not subverted by the dominant capital. Yet, in trading and financial terms, the capital is really only a dwarf. Surely this means that Berlin can only play an important role economically as a hub towards Eastern Europe.

Handelsblatt

THIS SIMPLE beginning with the reopening of the Reichstag building may well reassure all of those Germans who, for various reasons, were afraid of Berlin and a possible "Berlin Republic".

The opening of the Reichstag was, thankfully, a celebration without overkill and embarrassments - apart from the handover of a giant symbolic key, which had overtones of the opening of a local savings bank rather than one of our important parliamentary buildings.

Suddeutsche Zeitung

THE CONCERN that a sovereign Germany could lose its sense of proportion is hardly justified, and yet it is necessary. Bonn does not deserve ridicule and scorn. We are continuing Bonn in Berlin and we are beginning something new in a house of democracy oriented towards the future.

Die Welt