Berlin - Fresh from hosting euphoric celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, German Chancellor Angela Merkel got back to business on Tuesday with a major speech to parliament planned.
Merkel, re-elected to a second term in late September, was due to outline to parliament at 10.00GMT her plans for the next four years, centred on pulling Europe's biggest economy out of its worst recession since World War II.
On Monday, Merkel and leaders past and present feted two decades to the day since the authorities in communist East Germany gave in to immense public pressure and threw open the border on the evening of November 9, 1989.
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Just eleven months later, West and East Germany became one country again, as other communist regimes across Eastern and Central Europe collapsed. Soon even the Soviet Union was no more.
The highlight of Monday's commemorations was a procession of leaders through the historic Brandenburg Gate that was blocked off to West Berliners for the 28 years of the wall's existence and which is now a symbol of German unity.
Merkel, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave rousing speeches and a surprise video address by US President Barack Obama was beamed in to cheering crowds.
"Today, there are still those who live within the walls of tyranny, human beings that are denied the very human rights that we celebrate today," Obama said.
"That is why this day is for them as much as it is for us."
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ex-Polish president Lech Walesa and dissidents who helped end European communism were also on hand at the former "death strip" where border guards once had shoot-to-kill orders.
A thousand giant dominoes along the former path of the hated concrete barrier were toppled before the night sky exploded with fireworks and live music entertained the more than 100 000 rain-soaked revellers.
But Merkel, 55, has a lot on her plate, however, not least the fact that 19 years after unification, eastern Germany remains much poorer that than the west, with unemployment high and young people fleeing.
Merkel, the first chancellor to have grown up in communist East Germany, admitted as much on Monday: "German unity is still incomplete. We must tackle this problem if we want to achieve equal quality of life."
With an estimated €1,3-trillion flowing eastwards since 1990, Merkel's new infrastructure minister Peter Ramsauer caused uproar over the weekend with a call for more investment in the west.
Export-dependent Germany as a whole has been hit hard by the global recession, pushing it into its steepest slump in six decades, leaving the country's public finances and its reputation for fiscal rectitude in tatters.
The answer of Merkel's conservatives and their new pro-business coalition partners is a raft of tax cuts, even though this will further increase Germany's ballooning debt pile and leave future generations to pick up the tab.
She plans €24-billion in tax cuts from 2011, in addition to cuts worth around €21-billion worth agreed in Merkel's first term that are due to take effect from 2010.
Other challenges include the need to reform Germany's creaking health care system and to bolster public support for the country's unpopular mission in Afghanistan, where it currently has around 4 300 troops. - AFP
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