CP of Bohemia and Moravia, Statement on LT Klaus Suggestion. Oct 16, 2009
CP of Bohemia and Moravia, Statement on LT Klaus Suggestion
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From: Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, Friday, 16 October 2009
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Statement of the Vice-Chairman of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia Jiri Mastalka on the reaction of the Government of the Czech Republic
on the suggestion of the President Václav Klaus
I have received with certain scruple a report on the conclusions of the meeting of the Government of the Czech Republic that discussed a point of view towards a requirement of the President Klaus a guarantee to become precondition for a ratification of the Lisbon Treaty that no claims would be raised of those persons whose properties have been confiscated on the basis of the so-called Benes Decrees.
The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia drew attention since the beginning of a discussion about the Lisbon Treaty to a possibility that some of the former so called Sudetenland Germans or their descendants will raise restitution claims concerning properties confiscated to traitors and collaborators. The EU legal order has been created in a way allowing such claims. On the other side we are aware of the fact that those claims cannot be in any case satisfied as far as the international law is respected. Transfer of Germans from some countries of the Middle Europe has been decided by the Potsdam Conference and not by the so-called Benes Decrees. It is true, the Decrees of the President of the Czechoslovak Republic Edward Benes contain a decision on the confiscation of the properties of traitors and collaborators – of those citizens of the first Czechoslovak Republic who – in the time of occupation – changed their citizenship in favour of the Nazi Germany or actively collaborated with the occupation power. Properties confiscation did not apply – according to those Decrees – on those members of national minorities who have not betrayed the Republic and have not collaborated.
The Paris Agreement on the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany since October 1954 signed by Germany contains the obligation that the FRG will not raise in the future any objections against property measures incurred from the world war.
I am nevertheless convinced that the international law will not prevent from the mentioned claims to be raised in front of the European Courts. Additionally, it is obvious from the conduct of the people as the EU high representative for foreign and security policies Javier Solana, their disrespect for the international law. It cannot be therefore automatically assumed that the international law will manage “to protect victors of the World War 2”. It is necessary to always remind that Germany started the war that Germany lost the war and that Germany agreed to unconditional capitulation. Tragedy of German citizens brought by the war and a part of which was also transfer of German population from some Middle European countries, has been caused by the Nazi Germany itself.
The argumentation defending the actual shape of the Lisbon Treaty by affirmation that the Deed of Rights cannot act retroactively, sounds in the country where massive restitutions have been carried out and where the so called Lustration Law is applied, a little bit falsely. We know that political elites of the contemporary world speak often about human rights but that they manage to enforce their egoist interests with unprecedented hardness. That is why we understand the efforts of the President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus to fill in the Lisbon Treaty the above-mentioned guarantee, and we demand the Government to unequivocally commit itself to give support to the President’s requirement.