-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2002/0330/3474147210FR30WVIEW.html
}}}>Begin
Enlargement of EU begins to re-open painful scars of history
30/03/2002
WORLD VIEW: The forthcoming enlargement of the EU and a series of imminent
general elections are reopening historical scars in relations between the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Germany and Austria.
The decrees issued by the exiled Czechoslovakian president, Edvard Benes, in 1945
stripped some three million Sudeten Germans and tens of thousands of Hungarians
of their citizenship and property, prior to their expulsion (with Allied acquiescence)
for
co- operating with the Nazis. They joined some 14 million ethnic Germans expelled
from Eastern Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia at the end of the second World War,
whose survivors settled in the two German states after it.
After a long period in which their fate was virtually a taboo subject in Germany
(except for the expatriate associations in Bavaria) there has recently been a sudden
flourish of interest in the dramatic story of their expulsion. Gunter Grass's latest
novel, Im Krebsgang (The walk of a crab), deals with the sinking of the refugee ship,
William Gustlof, in the Baltic by the Soviet navy with 10,000 people aboard. It is as
if
the consolidation of Germany's peaceful relations with its neighbours 13 years after
its reunification allows that trauma to be faced more openly and confidently. But this
is awakening old fears in several of the accession states.
The issue has been made more political as the EU enlargement negotiations enter
their most critical stages, dealing with property rights and land purchase. Poland has
just reached an agreement on tax and capital movement, providing for up to 12
years' transition period on land sales and leases and the purchase of holiday homes.
Many Poles fear a surge of investment from former German occupants and owners
of farms and land after enlargement, making it a sharply controversial political issue.
During his visit to Dublin last week the Polish Foreign Minister, Dr Woldzimierz
Cimoszewicz, said compensation for those expelled as demanded by the expatriate
associations has never been supported by the German government. Any attempt to
do so would raise the deepest questions of responsibility for beginning the war and
compensation for its casualties and damage. The Polish President, Mr Aleksander
Kwasnievski, said last week "that period should remain closed, in the judicial sense.
We must keep the status quo concerning borders after the war".
There are similar concerns about land and property in the Czech Republic. In
January the Czech Prime Minister, Mr Milos Zeman (facing elections in June),
described the Sudeten Germans as "Hitler's fifth column". He was responding to
demands from Austria, notably by the far right leader, Mr Jörg Haider, that the Benes
decrees be annulled as a condition for Czech EU membership. In February, the
Hungarian Prime Minister, Mr Victor Orban, made a similar demand, recalling the
30,000 ethnic Hungarians expelled from Slovakia in 1945.
On March 11th, Mr Orban met the Austrian Chancellor, Mr Wolfgang Schuessel; the
Prime Minister of the German state of Baden-Wuertemberg, Mr Erwin Teufel, and
the Bavarian State Secretary, Mr Erwin Huber, at the northern Hungarian town of
Esztergom, on the border with Slovakia. They called jointly for the Benes decrees to
be annulled before the Czech Republic joins the EU, demanding European co-
operation on the issue.
A wider regional meeting in the nearby town of Visegrad, on the Danube, was
cancelled earlier because of the row, symbolising the disarray among the accession
states who met there for the first time in 1990 on the proposal of the Czech
President, Mr Vaclav Havel.
Elections in Germany are also stoking up the issue. The Chancellor, Mr Gerhard
Schröder, cancelled a visit to Prague that threatened to be dominated by the Benes
decrees. His challenger in the September polls is Mr Edmund Stoiber, Premier of
Bavaria, where most of those expelled from Czechoslovakia settled after the war. (In
fact they were originally of Austrian rather than German background, having settled
in the Sudeten region under the Hapsburg Empire - hence Austria's interest).
EU officials have urged that entry negotiations "should not be burdened by the past"
in the words of Mr Guenter Verheugen, the chief negotiator. He has welcomed
statements by the Czech and Slovak governments that the Benes decrees are no
longer in effect. But they do not want to repeal them officially because this could
allow expelled Germans and Hungarians to reclaim confiscated properties. Mr Havel
has said restitution cannot be part of the discussion about them.
These disputes may seem far away from Ireland's preoccupations and interests - but
that is quite a mistaken view. Dr Cimoszewicz had a clear message for his hosts in
Dublin. A second Irish No to the Nice Treaty "would not only complicate but even
block the enlargement process" he told a press briefing . "I don't mean to press Irish
voters, who have a sovereign right to decide. But it is a matter of fact that they have
a responsibility not only for the future of Ireland but for the whole continent".
He said enlargement is a chance to integrate quite different societies and eliminate
the division of Europe agreed at Yalta. The Nice Treaty sets out important and
necessary institutional agreements to allow enlargement proceed.
It can be seen from the row over the Benes decrees that any prolonged delay in
enlargement, such as could be triggered by a second Irish No, would exacerbate
such tensions and make it more difficult for governments in the accession states to
win their own referendums on agreements involving hard decisions.
Ireland is seen by them as a successful model of catch-up development by a
peripheral country. Such goodwill would be lost in a second No. It would also obscure
the parallels there are between Ireland's historical circumstances and political
development.
© The Irish Times
End<{{{
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