Europe After the Berlin Wall: 4 Surprises

The fall of the Berlin Wall was bad news for sovietologists. Thousands of spies, military officers, diplomats, professors, journalists and assorted experts made a living studying the Soviet Union. None predicted its collapse.

But if the sudden and peaceful end of the Soviet empire was a surprise, the effects of the collapse for Europe have been almost as surprising. Here are 4 of the unexpected consequences that the end of the Soviet Union had for Europe -- and that the experts also failed to anticipate.

---

The Memory Trap?

Why remembrance of imperial glory holds back Russia today.

By Nina L. Krushcheva

1. China displaced the Soviet Union (USSR) as the main threat for Europeans.

When the Berlin Wall fell no one imagined that China would more directly affect the lives of Western Europeans than was ever the case for the USSR. Not because of China's military might but as a result of its economic prowess. After World War II, Western Europe had lived under the threat of a deadly confrontation with the Soviets. Fortunately, that threat never materialized and, in practice, the daily lives of Europeans were not that affected. In contrast, the economic rise of China touches the daily lives of all Europeans: from what they pay for a TV set to medicines, and from gasoline to their home mortgages or the possibility of finding a job. Chinese capitalism is transforming Europe far more than Soviet communism ever did.

2. The Euro.

No one predicted that the fall of the Berlin Wall would stimulate the creation of a single European currency. That the Germans would be willing to leave the deutschemark or that the French would accept having a currency controlled from Frankfurt -- the headquarters of the European Central Bank  were unimaginable possibilities. Or that 14 other countries would also shed their old currencies to adopt the Euro. Equally impossible to imagine was a scenario where after a massive global financial crisis with devastating effects on European economies, the reserve currency for those who feared that the U.S. dollar will plummet would be the Euro. The Euro was a utopia and today is a reality that does not surprise anyone. And that's a surprise.

12NEXT