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Romania RELATIONS WITH NONCOMMUNIST STATES
West Germany
In January 1967, Romania became the second Warsaw Pact
state
after the Soviet Union to establish diplomatic relations
with West
Germany, an action based on the Warsaw Pact's Bucharest
Declaration
of 1966. The declaration affirmed that there were "circles
that
oppose revanchism and militarism and that seek the
development of
normal relations with countries of both the East and the
West as
well as a normalization of relations between the two
German
states." The declaration also included a statement
affirming that
a basic condition for European security was the
establishment of
normal relations between states "regardless of their
social
system."
In the period after 1967, relations with West Germany
passed
through several stages. Initially, Romania minimized
differences in
ideology and foreign and domestic policy. But friction
soon
surfaced over the question of ethnic German emigration. In
1979
West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt visited Bucharest
and
extended credit guarantees of approximately US$368 million
in
return for Romanian pledges to facilitate the
reunification of
ethnic German families. The issue resurfaced in 1983 when
the socalled education tax would have increased West Germany's
payment of
the equivalent of US$2,632 per ethnic German emigrant to
US$42,105.
After visits by Bavarian premier Franz Joseph Strauss and
West
German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, an
agreement was
reached whereby the West German government increased its
payment
per emigrant to approximately US$5,263. According to press
reports,
the agreement remained in effect until June 30, 1988, and
provided
for the emigration of 11,000 to 13,000 Transylvanian
Saxons
annually. The West German publication Die Welt
reported that
in January 1989 a follow-up agreement had been reached by
which
Romania would continue to permit emigration at the
previous rate.
Political relations with West Germany, which had been
their
most cordial during Willi Brandt's chancellorship, took a
sharp
downturn in the 1980s. Ceausescu's 1984 visit to Bonn had
sought
to exploit a setback in West German relations with
Bulgaria, East
Germany, and the Soviet Union. Observers believed that
Ceausescu
was determined to rebuild his tarnished reputation in the
West. But
disagreements over arms control, trade, and the treatment
of ethnic
Germans prevented the issue of a joint communique.
After the mid-1980s, West German official criticism
gave way to
direct acts of protest against Romanian policies. In April
1989,
Chancellor Helmut Kohl declared that the situation for
Romania's
ethnic Germans had become intolerable. At the same time,
the West
German Foreign Ministry lodged an official condemnation of
Romania's human rights policies.
Data as of July 1989
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