Unification Talks Enter New Phase : Germany: East and West prepare for first Cabinet-level contacts.

Talks on German unity move into a new phase this week with the first Cabinet-level contacts between West Germany and the new, democratic government of East Germany.

Officials in Bonn confirmed Monday that Wolfgang Schaeuble, the West German interior minister, will meet Wednesday in Bonn with his East German counterpart, Peter-Michael Diestel. The ministers of economics will meet the following day.

The foreign ministers are also expected to meet this week.

The first meeting of the new East German prime minister, Lothar de Maiziere, and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is likely to follow soon after Kohl returns Friday from vacation.

The meetings effectively mark the start of negotiations on a treaty that will be the basis for economic and social unification. A commitment by the two governments to have a currency union in place by July 1 has injected a strong sense of urgency into the process.

According to constitutional experts, about two months will be needed to formulate and ratify a treaty once the two governments reach an agreement in principle. This means that the talks must be completed by early May.

The pace is forced by concern in both countries about the need to eliminate the sense of drift and uncertainty that has paralyzed much of East German society and fueled the flight of refugees to West Germany.

Since the March elections in East Germany, the number of people leaving the country has dropped sharply, but officials have expressed fear that failure to agree on currency union and the social and economic conditions accompanying it could result in new departures for the West.

Monetary union will make the West German deutschemark the currency of East Germany as well. The deutschemark’s strength and convertibility have come to symbolize political as much as economic freedom of choice.

A West German government working paper on unity, leaked last week to the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung, set out the goal of a unified Germany based on the West German market economy, its tax and social welfare systems and its labor laws.

The new East German government has agreed to seek unity by adopting the West German constitution with some changes.

ON THE MARK--The currency issue is a sore point in reunification talks. D1