Post by Jaga on Oct 23, 2009 3:25:56 GMT -7
see some interesting photos:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102204668.html
PARIS -- Europe's latest step toward a more united future, which seemed at hand after long delays, has become bogged down over a forgotten chapter from the continent's bloody past: the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II.
The unexpected hitch has provided a vivid reminder that the nations that gave birth to the European Union are only one generation away from the World War II and Cold War horrors during which the lives of millions were sacrificed to ideology or nationalism.
The man most responsible for tripping the memory switch on those stormy days is the president of what is now the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, who is known as a Czech nationalist skeptical of giving the European Union supranational powers.
Although the Czech Parliament has voted favorably, Klaus has refused to sign off on ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, a two-year-old pact that would grant greater powers to the E.U. leadership in Brussels and create a European president for the first time.
Before he signs, Klaus said, he wants a special provision added to the Lisbon Treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights. The last-minute add-on, officials said, would exempt the Czech Republic from paying reparations or returning land to the estimated 2.5 million ethnic Germans who were expelled from the Sudeten areas under the 1945 Benes decrees, named after the Czech president at the time.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102204668.html
PARIS -- Europe's latest step toward a more united future, which seemed at hand after long delays, has become bogged down over a forgotten chapter from the continent's bloody past: the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II.
The unexpected hitch has provided a vivid reminder that the nations that gave birth to the European Union are only one generation away from the World War II and Cold War horrors during which the lives of millions were sacrificed to ideology or nationalism.
The man most responsible for tripping the memory switch on those stormy days is the president of what is now the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, who is known as a Czech nationalist skeptical of giving the European Union supranational powers.
Although the Czech Parliament has voted favorably, Klaus has refused to sign off on ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, a two-year-old pact that would grant greater powers to the E.U. leadership in Brussels and create a European president for the first time.
Before he signs, Klaus said, he wants a special provision added to the Lisbon Treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights. The last-minute add-on, officials said, would exempt the Czech Republic from paying reparations or returning land to the estimated 2.5 million ethnic Germans who were expelled from the Sudeten areas under the 1945 Benes decrees, named after the Czech president at the time.