Gerhard Schröder

It was only a few years ago that the East European countries moved back into the field of vision of Western policy. For a decade they were kept outside the scope of our active policy, though not out of our thoughts. Most of the paths we trod toward the East led through a frosty and monotonous political landscape, past a hundred million East Europeans and their capital cities directly to Moscow. These peoples and, as we can now see, their governments, did not voluntarily remain in the background nor renounce their right to shape their own future and their relations with the rest of the world. But as long as only the voice of Moscow was heard in reply to questions asked of them, the countries of the West had no choice but to speak with those whose voice alone mattered.