Communist Leader, Bonn Envoy Discuss Economy

Communist leader Egon Krenz today met with an envoy from Bonn in talks expected to focus on a West German offer to bail out its Communist neighbor’s economy in return for moves toward a free market system.

A Communist daily said extremists have urged their countrymen to sabotage East Germany’s electrical system as a form of protest. And a West German poll found that if free elections were held now, the Communists would be in third place.

East Germany has told the European Community that it wants a broad trade and economic cooperation accord and wants to start talks on European security matters. But it rejected talk of a German reunification.

Rudolf Seiters, chief of staff to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, came to East Berlin and met with Prime Minister Hans Modrow to prepare next month’s summit between Kohl and Krenz, which will be the first ever between leaders of the two states to take place in East Germany.

Seiters met later with Krenz, and it was not immediately revealed what the two discussed. East German television said a main question from the East German standpoint would be whether Bonn is ready for bilateral ties “on a measurably higher level without unacceptable conditions.”

East German officials have rejected what they see as West German attempts to lure the state from its socialist principles by linking aid to the introduction of a free market economy.