BERLIN (AFP) — Exactly 17 years after German reunification, the exodus of people from the former East Germany continues and politicians are grappling for ways to stem the tide.
A survey released this week showed that a third of young women in the former communist part of the country plan to leave to look for a better life in the West.
Unlike that euphoric night in November 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down marking an end to the Cold War, it is no longer the prospect of freedom after decades of communism sending them across the divide but the state of the economy.
Despite a robust upswing in the German economy after years in the doldrums -- which was partly the result of the high financial cost of the reunification process that began formally on October 3, 1990 -- the regional states of the east are still fighting a losing battle against rampant unemployment and a lack of investment.
The brain drain is set to continue unabated, according to the survey unveiled by sociologists in Berlin.
To reverse the trend, politicians have come up with ideas that perhaps owe more to creativity than realism.
Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, who is also in charge of the integration of the eastern states, has proposed introducing travelling libraries in the region, Der Spiegel news magazine reported in its online edition.
Most incentives for staying bring money into play, but not always with success.
Three regional states, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, recently started offering young doctors a subsidy of 60,000 euros (84,900 dollars) to settle there and alleviate a dire shortage of general practitioners where one often serves as many as 300 patients.
In Brandenburg, the region surrounding Berlin, the authorities have even gone as far as guaranteeing young doctors a salary for two years.
"In spite of these incentives, it remains difficult to draw doctors to the region," Roland Stahl from the German doctors' association told AFP.
Though they at least are assured of jobs, they are loathe to settle in areas that lack good schools or simply the quality of life to which young professionals aspire.
In Thuringia, it took a year to track down a freshly graduated doctor ready to take over a well-established, rent-free practice.
On the eve of the anniversary of reunification, former foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Gentscher, who was born in what was to become East Germany before fleeing to the West in 1952, has pleaded for investment in the education in the former communist region as a long-term strategy to resolve its woes.
"It is vital to place the emphasis on support for universities and research centres in the new states," as the former East German states are called, he told Deutschlandradio Kultur on Tuesday.
Others have radically proposed no longer trying to fight the problem but for the country to simply cut its losses.
Berlin's demography institute suggested that the state give financial incentives to residents of the east who want to or are willing to leave, so that it no longer has to maintain infrastructure and social services that are teetering in a state of near collapse.
It even went as far as to propose letting rural, ever more sparcely populated parts of Brandenburg, return to the wild.
Since reunification, the population of the former East Germany has declined by 1.3 million as result of people leaving, but also because of the drop in the German birthrate which is more pronounced in the east
A study conducted by Dresden University and two economic research institutes last year forecast that the region will lose another 1.5 million people in the coming 15 years to count only 12 million inhabitants by 2020.
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