I don't find eastern Germany's results surprising. Again, part of the explanation is that overall, France isn't doing as good as one normally informed would expect, which is not only a French embarrassment but also a potential problem to our partners all around, such as Spain and Germany itself whose France is a major customer. And of course, Eastern Europe has been growing since Soviet Union collapsed. That's been for 25 years! So where would be any surprise? Really, the time when we won't laugh at countries like Poland anymore shouldn't be too long from now.
I think the most amazing in there is the Irish case. People over here say it was still like really poor just 30 years ago. I can remember that astonished me indeed the 1st time I heard about that since for example, a cousin of mine spent a couple of years in Dublin in the early 00s. Then when she came back from over there, she was better off and quite satisfied from her Irish experience. They really came a long long way within a pretty short time. Granted, they benefited a lot from the EU subsidies, but so did Spain that's still slower. At the end of the day, the Irish strategy proved remarkably effective, even in the turmoil of the global crisis. It is probably the best case study in there, even though the righteous Scandinavians still rule, but that is really no surprise at all.