Drastic Action Needed to Save Economy, E. Germans Are Told

Government delegates to talks with the opposition said Wednesday that drastic action is necessary to rescue the East German economy, which labors under a huge debt and a severe shortage of skilled workers.

The administration of Communist Prime Minister Hans Modrow has recommended price boosts for energy and removal of subsidies on food and other basic goods but rejects following Poland in a radical turn toward a free market.

Tensions have increased in recent weeks between Modrow’s interim government and a fractious array of new political parties and reform groups as they try to reshape East Germany and prepare for democratic elections in May.

Opposition groups have accused Modrow’s government of keeping important decisions secret during what they see as a transitional period.

Forty years of Communist mismanagement and the emigration to West Germany last year of hundreds of thousands of skilled workers are being felt in a shortage of goods and decline in services.

Labor shortages in health and other public services mean understaffed hospitals and littered streets. The decline in industrial production that began last year is expected to continue through spring.

An opposition group that seeks clarification of some issues threatened on Wednesday to leave the weekly talks, in which representatives of about 20 political parties and citizen groups are working on reforms.

Democratic Awakening, a political group advocating closer ties with the West and a more market-oriented economy, has demanded to know whether East Germany still has a national security force and, if so, whether it is armed.

The government said last month that the secret police agency was being disbanded. On Wednesday, Democratic Awakening leader Wolfgang Schnur demanded evidence of that by Monday.

New Forum, the largest reform movement with 200,000 members, had threatened earlier to pull out of the weekly negotiations.

At Wednesday’s session, Economics Minister Christa Luft gave a grim account of East Germany’s condition.

More than 250,000 jobs remain unfilled, she said, and the situation is particularly acute in health services, education, public works and factories.

In 1989, more than 320,000 East Germans fled to the freedom and greater prosperity of West Germany, where East Germans are given aid and are easily integrated.

Luft also called for more private activity to meet public demand.