Schumacher's well-founded work will be of great interest for the German academic public. Since this trade study has, for a wider audience at least, more of an instrumental character with regard to the central labor market questions, it seems appropriate to make a few preliminary remarks to put the discussion in a wider context.

For Eastern Europe, trade with Germany and the resulting effects on employment, competitiveness, and growth are of considerable significance; around half of the Eastern European countries' exports go to the EU, and half of these in turn go to Germany. Their future growth will likely depend very much on the volume of trade, but also to a large degree on the trade-related transfer of technology and the effects on competition and innovation.

For Germany, the effects might be much smaller. While Schumacher emphasizes the considerable dynamism of Germany's eastern trade, which exceeded in 1994 the trade volume with the United States for the first time, we are still talking about no more than 7 percent of German trade. Even if it is appropriate to differentiate between individual sectors, it must nevertheless be said that even for a relatively “open” country such as Germany (with export and import shares of 38 percent and 30 percent, respectively), a multiplication of trade with the Eastern European countries will only have a limited effect on the economic structure and macroeconomic variables in the foreseeable future.