Despite all announcements, unification came all of sudden and very unexpected. There was no master plan on how to deal with this great gift of history to the German people. 
The FRG has participated in Western cooperation and organisations. The country has been democratically ruled and based on a employee-oriented social market economy. The FRG is a founding member of the EU, while the GDR was a member of Eastern cooperation and organisations run by a single party. It was a member of the eastern economic organisation COMECON, centrally guided by the Soviet Union, and had a centrally planned economy with five-year plans on allocation, distribution and investment. 
The organisation of the states and societies were developing differently since at least 1949. In 1990 nearly everything changed for the people in GDR and only for them. The citizens of the FRG did not take over any achievements of the former GDR. For East Germans the November 1989 up to October 1990 was a real revolution. The former system of habits, rules, regulations, conventions, education and training -in short, the experiences of all their lives have been questioned ever since the day of unification. 
Besides psychological difficulties some avoidable mistakes happened only due to political

reasons. For example, the currency was changed, two Marks of GDR into one Mark of FRG against any economic reasoning. This decission meant that the value of the GDR Mark and the costs of production in East Germany went up by more than 100% and did not meet economic reality the differences in productivity. Because of the low productivity in East German industries competitiveness immediately went down and it nearly resulted in a catastrophe which could only be avoided by intensive public western-paid aid. 
East German industry had to face competition without any shelter by tariffs and it partially lost its markets in the East. In 1989 we had 1.7 million workers in manufacturing industries in East Germany. Now it went down to one third. Around 35 out of a hundred persons in Western Germany work in the manufacturing sector and only less than 20 in Eastern Germany. The average productivity is only two third of the average Western productivity. Accordingly, the wages are 20% lower. Less than expected necessary investments are made. The actual unemployment rate is 23. 2% and a lot of persons are working short hours and in job procurement measures. 
An important fact was that in Germany the laws were enacted by the Bundestag in Bonn and till 1990 the East Germans were not 

even represented there. This makes a big difference to the accession states where members of parliaments will make the decisions, legitimated by voters of their constituency. 
While being unified, we became automatically a European Community member which meant: to participate in an enlarged market with European competition; to take over rules and standards developed and implemented by Western Europeans over 40 years; to deal with a not very powerful European Parliament in Strasbourg, the Commission in Brussels and the European Council; to contribute to the development of the Union by improving the technical infrastructure and the human resources, giving the same chances to everybody to live in a society of fair competition. 
So in my opinion, the time of transition into the European Union is a very precious time and it should be intensely and carefully used for preparing the country and its citizens for joining.

The majority of people in Lithuania have a vision of their country in the oncoming century, as a member state of European Union. Undoubtedly a great number of fields have to be developed to meet the EU standards. 
Economy is one of the fields where Lithuania still has to progress. It is obvious that regional development positively can influence the economy of the whole state. The problems of regional development were discussed at the international conference "Siauliai: Your Business Partner", which was held in Siauliai, 12-13 May and was organised by the Siauliai City Municipality. 
The businessmen of the Siauliai region had the possibility to

establish contacts with representatives from other regions of Lithuania and guests from the EU countries: Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The participants of the conference discussed various questions and shared experiences in three workshops. The importance of regional development for the whole state in the process of the preparation to join the EU was emphasised. 
Social issues are taken seriously in the EU. It is very important to a young Lithuanian independent state to align to the EU social standards. 
The conference of the Femina Baltica project that took place in Siauliai, April 22-23, focused on 

social affairs. It was a result of the successful co-operation between the municipalities of Siauliai and Turku. This event attracted a large number of participants from Northern Lithuania and foreign countries and was extremely useful for the representatives of Lithuanian women's organisations and social workers, who had the possibility of gaining new experiences and progressive ideas.