East Germans Flirt With Reunification Move Now : Europe: Parliament makes a symbolic gesture. It pays tribute to workers killed in a 1953 attempt to overthrow Soviet rule.

EAST BERLIN —  Flirting with history on an emotional anniversary, East Germany’s Parliament came close Sunday to dissolving the country and uniting with West Germany.

But the move turned out to be more of a symbolic gesture and an acknowledgment that unification is imminent and inevitable.

The country’s first freely elected Parliament voted overwhelmingly to discuss the final decision of German unification, but then put off the action.

Lawmakers met in a rare Sunday session to debate unification and commemorate the 37th anniversary of a failed attempt by East German workers to overthrow Soviet rule.

With Chancellor Helmut Kohl and other top West German officials in the hall to mark the anniversary, lawmakers from the German Social Union proposed that the final question of German unification be placed on the agenda.

Lawmakers voted 267-92, with seven abstentions, to take up the issue.

But when debate opened, East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere took the microphone and said he would not support the measure because of the many questions that need to be addressed before the two Germanys are united.

De Maiziere also referred to the June 17, 1953, uprising, in which an estimated 300 people were killed, as one of the earliest attempts to unify a nation cut in two by World War II.

Lawmakers then voted by an overwhelming show of hands to postpone the vote on unification.

The two German states are to merge their economies July 2, when the West German mark becomes the currency of East Germany.

Banks stayed open through the weekend and hundreds stood in lines, opening accounts and filling out forms so their money can be changed to West German marks.

But the two nations still must find ways to merge their vastly different legal, economic and social systems and resolve the key question of the strategic future of a united Germany.