Benes' decrees question still alive

Austria: Haider is demanding the abolition of the Benes' decrees again

Benes' decrees question still alive

The key figure in the Austrian co-governing far right FPŐ Joerg Haider again demanded on Tuesday that decrees on the expulsion of German minorities after World War Two be annulled by the Czech Republic and Slovakia before their admission to the European Union.
The AFP news agency quotes Haider as saying in a communique it is not appropriate in modern democracies that laws ignoring peoples' interests, which originated from the period of dictatorship, still constitute part of the valid constitutions. Recently Haider said that EU candidate countries should send a "clear signal," that they would abolish the decrees.
Austrian Government Commissioner to EU enlargement Erhard Busek has rejected recently Haider's demands on abolition and critised him for his statements concerning Austrian blocking of CR's entry to EU because of the decrees.
The Yugoslav decrees from 1943 and the Czechoslovak Prezident Benes' decrees from 1945 ordered that German minorities expelled from these countries after World War Two.
About three million ethnic Germans who lived in the so-called Sudetenland, which was annexed by the Third Reich in 1938, were droved out to Germany and Austria in 1945 and 1946. Ten percent of them allegedly died during the transfer. Most of the survivors settled in Bavaria, and the rest in Austria, AFP says, although the Czech government officially claims that around 2.5 million people were resettled under decrees issued by then Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes.
The move was later approved by the Potsdam Conference. The Post-Communist Czech governments have refused to abolish the Benes decrees, as demanded by Sudeten Germans in Germany and Austria, saying that they were an integral part of the Czech legal system. The Czech Republic and Slovakia are the members of the 5+1 group of fast-track candidates for EU membership. No date of admission has been set as yet.
The annulling of the decrees in both countries is part of the programme of the Austrian government formed in February by the far right Freedom Party (FPŐ) and the conservative People's Party. However, Vienna has sought to assure Prague and Ljubljana that it will not place any conditions for their entry to EU.
Haider, who is not a member of the cabinet, has said several times in the past that the abolition of the decrees should be a condition for EU entry.