Won’t Weaken Commitments to Its Allies, W. Germany Says

WEST BERLIN —  West Germany took special pains Wednesday to assure its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies that the momentous events in East Germany will not weaken Bonn’s commitment to the alliance and to the European Community.

Government spokesman Hans Klein said that Chancellor Helmut Kohl will use a one-day special summit meeting of the European Community on Saturday in Paris to give his assessment of the tumultuous developments in East Germany.

“The chancellor will pass on the information that he has to his partners to strengthen the feeling that developments in East Germany will not weaken our commitment to the European Community,” Klein said.

In Brussels, former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, after meeting European Commission President Jacques Delors, said he thinks the European Community can devise a coherent policy toward Eastern European countries undergoing reforms.

Brandt said Delors will offer important suggestions on how the Common Market nations should react to changes in Eastern Europe.

“The community will conclude different accords which go beyond trade treaties,” Brandt said. “This may take . . . the form of an association.”

Meanwhile in East Berlin, new Prime Minister Hans Modrow spent a long day negotiating with four smaller parties over the composition of a coalition government.

It was the first time in East Germany’s history that a prime minister had to haggle--like Western coalition government leaders--over the shape of his Cabinet.

The four small parties in East Germany, which used to be satellites of the ruling Communist Party, have been attempting to exert their new-found independence.

These parties, according to East German sources, have insisted on having more seats in the Cabinet than Modrow has offered them.

Part of the problem, these sources said, is that Modrow would like to reduce the number of ministries--from more than 40 to about 25--which would leave fewer portfolios to pass around.

In East Berlin, additional changes were reported within the Communist Party--13 of the party’s 15 regional leaders have been replaced, according to the official news agency ADN.

The East German government also is reported to have acceded to a popular demand for greater civil rights. Justice Ministry State Secretary Siegfried Wittenbeck said in a newspaper interview that East German courts have not been independent but that this will change.

He said the government is reviewing statutes governing “crimes against the state” that have been a catchall for arresting dissidents.

“One should say clearly that, in the past, citizens were punished for behavior which the vast majority of people did not think criminal,” he told the official Communist newspaper Neues Deutschland.

“For example, making public that one wished to travel abroad, or not returning home after a trip to a foreign country,” he said.

In Bonn, the West German government said that Chancellery Minister Rudolf Zeiters, who is Kohl’s senior expert on East Germany, will not be carrying specific offers of economic aid when he visits East Berlin on Monday.

Bonn had outlined Tuesday a program of economic aid for East Germany--but only on condition that East Germany make economic and political reforms.

Zeiters will visit the East German capital in order to pave the way for the coming meeting between Chancellor Kohl and the East German leader, Egon Krenz.