Editing German reunification (section)

===International effects===
The reunification made Germany into one of the world's [[great power]]s again. The practical result of the chosen legal model of the unification (the incorporation of the territory of German Democratic Republic by the Federal Republic of Germany, and the continuation of the legal personality of the now enlarged Federal Republic) is that the expanded Federal Republic of Germany inherited the old West Germany's seats at the UN, NATO, the European Communities, and other international organizations. It also continued to be a party to all the [[treaties]] the old West Germany signed prior to the moment of reunification. The Basic Law and statutory laws that were in force in the Federal Republic, as amended in accordance with the Unification Treaty, continued automatically in force but now applied to the expanded territory. Also, the same President, Chancellor (Prime Minister), and Government of the Federal Republic remained in office, but their jurisdiction now included the newly acquired territory of the former East Germany.

To facilitate this process and to reassure other countries, fundamental changes were made to the German constitution. The Preamble and Article 146 were amended, and Article 23 was replaced, but the deleted former Article 23 was applied as the constitutional model to be used for the 1990 reunification. Hence, prior to the five "New Länder" of East Germany joining, the Basic Law was amended to indicate that all parts of Germany would then be unified such that Germany could now no longer consider itself constitutionally open to further extension to include the [[former eastern territories of Germany]], which were now parts of Poland and Russia (the German territory the former USSR annexed was a part of Russia – [[Soviet Russia|a Soviet member state]]) and were settled by [[Polish people|Poles]] and [[Russians]] respectively. The changes effectively formalized the [[Oder–Neisse line]] as Germany's permanent eastern border. These amendments to the Basic Law were mandated by Article I, section 4 of the Two Plus Four Treaty.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}}