Illicit drugs:
limited cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy, mostly for
domestic consumption; used as transshipment point for opiates via
Central Asia to Western Europe and Russia
This page was last updated on 10 February, 2005
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@Germany
Introduction Germany
Background:
As Europe's largest economy and most populous nation, Germany
remains a key member of the continent's economic, political, and
defense organizations. European power struggles immersed Germany in
two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and
left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US,
UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the advent of the
Cold War, two German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic
(GDR). The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic
and security organizations, the EC, which became the EU, and NATO,
while the Communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led
Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War
allowed for German unification in 1990. Since then, Germany has
expended considerable funds to bring Eastern productivity and wages
up to Western standards. In January 1999, Germany and 10 other EU
countries introduced a common European exchange currency, the euro.
Geography Germany
Location:
Central Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, between
the Netherlands and Poland, south of Denmark
Geographic coordinates:
51 00 N, 9 00 E
Map references:
Europe