Transcript of the Hearing of Petition 270/2003 before the Commission on Petitions of the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday, March 18, 2003.

Chairman, Mr. Nino Gemelli :

Let us now move to the petitioners who came here for petition 270/2003 and give the floor to Mr. Hrdina. Please:

Hrdina (Austrian citizen representing the European Commission):

I want to present you with the logic of the Commission, in which way it occupied itself with this difficult historical and present question and to go into this document that has been distributed today by the petitioners. The Commission looked at the question of property confiscation in the Czech Republic together with the decrees of the Czechoslovak president Benes between 1945 and 1946. Let me refer to the written comments that we made to this petition but then also come up with something else. For us it is naturally all what happened in the Second World War and in relation to it. In Czechoslovakia the WWII has practically started with the Munich Agreements before the armed conflict and then continued with driving out the Sudeten Germans and confiscations under the Communist regime and abductions after that. We all know that the WWII was very probably the biggest tragedy of the past century for many people including the petitioners and their generation was marked with many dramatical experiences. These dramatical experiences worked naturally even after and today’s petition is often a reflection of what has happened in the past. What we started with is the foundation of the society: political response for that tragic time in Europe . And we continued with the assumption that all member states by the time they access to the European Union or at that time to the European Community will not entirely come to terms with the tragedy which is their and our history. Even states that were not in the World war embroiled, like for example Sweden has to shed light on certain grey aspects of that period. Luxembourg , which statistically suffered the biggest sacrifices on its civil population in the WWII belongs, as a founding state, to the European Community. We have found the answer to this tragedy with the founding of the European Union but unfortunately, the legal answers or the attempt to find the answer in the legal way to this tragedy is still impossible. And this is also the opinion that we had to arrive at about the confiscations in the former Czechoslovakia . The Commission was resolved to come to grips with this problem together with the problem of the decrees of the president Benes. This petition here goes a bit farther and occupies itself with the Czechoslovak restitution legislation as a whole and I will now, in my answer to today’s paper look closer. We had to look at this in the light of the accession or in the process of accession of the Czech Republic and it is important to understand that there is no acquis communautaire about restitutions. We did not require from any member state, either present or future to introduce restitution legislation, which would correct the historical injustice, as it would be, often, from the humanitarian view, desirable. I am, for example, pointing to the Austrian republic, which joined the European Union in 1995 and in the year 2002, seven years later, passed restitution legislation for confiscation in Nazi period. This means, it is not a condition for accession, because the rules about ownership right are in the jurisdiction of individual states. The petition deals with discrimination in the restitution legislation on the basis of nationality. Here we mentioned it in the Summary Findings, which we put together also in the light of the decrees and according to our thinking it has to be understood that the confiscations which took place in the years 1945 and 1946 is no lasting delict but a one-time delict, injustice, at which we now have to look as at a one-time delict and the restitution process which the state introduces are laws, which try to correct the laws of that time. It is correct that the restitution jurisdiction of the Czech Republic and of the previous Czechoslovak Republic is selective. What is difficult with this complaint is that it tries to defend interests of 1,300,000 people, while each individual case would have to be examined to see in which case the Czech justice perhaps failed. We understood, when we published this document in October 2002 that there is a difficulty for the Czech jurisdiction and I quote: In recent years, a number of plaintiffs have appealed to the Supreme and Constitutional Courts of the Czech Republic , after exhausting the lower-instance judiciary process with their respective restitution claims. Invariably, the cases brought to the courts of last instance are legally complex. It is fair to observe that the Czech judiciary is still struggling with the particular legal complexity that arises from the restitution of property in cases where its confiscation had been allegedly illegal under the provisions of the Decrees of 1945. Also we found the attempts of changing the history by judicial corrections to be not appeasing and it would be not appeasing for the victims of this tragedy but, although there is no acquis to the restitution legislation, in those restitution cases, which are still before the Czech courts, the parties, which are still represented there, those parties can bring their case to the European Court as soon as the Czech Republic becomes member of the European Union and have those few unresolved cases examined. We also have to say that we have some evidence that Czech courts are rushing now to bring these cases to a positive conclusion so that the applicants can bring their complaints to the European Court . With this I am coming again back to our idea that while the equitable treatment of the history has to stay imperfect, it was proven that the states of the European Union among themselves, when they are together in the Union and talk to each other will do better than if the history here will be used as a coercive measure in the process of accession. This would not have solved neither the legal nor the political question. With this I wish to go to the paper that has been distributed shortly before our meeting and to mention a few things that, in my mind, are some misunderstandings. And I will continue in English, because this paper is written in English. You say that the petition is attacking the third part of an official document called the Czechoslovak Presidential Decrees in light of the acquis communautaire and right after you say that the restitution legislation of the 1990 has nothing to do with the Benes decrees. Here I see a contradiction in that statement. The Commission issued a paper, which shed light on the relationship of the Benes decrees with the acquis communautaire and you miss in the same paper that it does not shed light on items of the restitution legislation, which has nothing to do with the Benes decrees. This was never the purpose of the Commission’s paper, to look at the restitutions legislation of the Czech Republic that has nothing to do with the Decrees, as the title of the Summary Findings says exactly, it is summary findings of the Commission Services on the Czechoslovak presidential decrees in the light of the acquis communautaire. So I think this criticism fails the object. I would also like to go into some other statements that are made in this paper. Yes, the whole debate that accompanied the Czech accession process over the last year and the year before was also marked by statements of politicians that are certainly for criticism. That is something that the Commission cannot answer for. It is a case that the debate was a very heated one over the last two years and I recall also it was dealt with repeatedly in the plenary of the European Parliament. Again, your paper states that the Commission in its statement disregards laws of the Czech Republic and decisions of the Czech Constitutional Court favourable to the victims. The Commission further by intention, by deceit or by shoddy work never mentions some decisions of the Czech Constitutional Court which all claim that due to the law 119/1990 the Communist verdicts were overturned. But again, it was exactly the purpose of the Commission’s findings to look into the potential lasting negative consequences of the Benes decrees on the rights of victims and not to look and enumerate the positive decisions of the Czech Constitutional Court that gave justice to victims by being favourable to them. And again, it was not the purpose of the Commission’s paper to look at restitution laws for many of the people your institution represents, namely Czech nationals that did not lose their property due to the decrees of the president Benes in 1945 and 1946 but due to the Communist expropriation - this was not the subject of the paper – the Communist expropriation. Then I have to get back again to what I said initially that the acquis communautaire does not describe particular restitution legislation. And so, one can be unhappy with the nature of the Czech restitutions and one can be unhappy with the way, maybe the style, with which Czech interlocutors respond to claims, even the politically and historically charged nature thereof but from a Community law point of view we still cannot find any reason that would be sufficiently weighty enough to come to the conclusion that the Czech Republic would need to be excluded from the accession to the European Union. I also finally want to point out that your paper of today mixes a few addressees. You say that there is a proof of incompetent work of the Commission. Fine, that is something that the Commission answers to. You say that there is a report by professor Frowein. There I have to correct you in the sense that the legal findings of prof. Frowein were not made for the Commission and it is not the Commission that based itself on that. They were made for the plenary of the European Parliament and prof. Frowein was engaged by the European Parliament to bring his findings. You also criticize in your paper the European Court of Justice for its findings in specific cases. Again, it cannot be the Commission that responds for the findings of the European Court of Justice. I think even my replies indicate that there is a complex legal matter, which is a remnant of a traumatic experience of the second world war and particularly of the circumstances in which Sudeten Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia at that time, including hardship and atrocities and been carted away in goods wagons. I just have to conclude that the legal remedy cannot overturn the injustices of the history and this is a fact, with which we found we have to live. I think that the European Union, politically, has found a good response to the tragedy of the Second World War. Thank you, Mr. President.

Jan Sammer:

Mr. Hrdina mixed up many things together. He went far into history, he started with year 1944, then he mentioned Swedish people and whatever but he never addressed the petition. The petition is very simple. The petition speaks about fraudulent document issued by the European Commission, which was probably, we cannot say for sure, but I am convinced that this paper, Summary Findings, was really originally prepared by the Czech government, handed to the Commission and the Commission just copied it. The issue of the petition is very simple. It is discrimination, which has been very thoroughly and in detail condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Committee and this speech of Mr. Hrdina tries to put together Benes decrees and restitutions. These things have nothing in common. Absolutely nothing. We are talking about Communist confiscations, which have been overturned by Czech, Czechoslovak laws. Then, of course, in the first years after the overthrow of the Communist system, the influence of the Communists was still very strong, so they started taking away from this original law piece by piece, until they said – Only Czech citizens are entitled, which is against the community law, which is against acquis communautaire. All this has been disregarded. The Czech Constitutional Court says that due to this original restitution law, which overturned and pronounced null and void ex tunc all those verdicts of confiscation that the ownership was never lost and it is still existing up to this day. So there are forces battling with each other. There are people who want all those confiscations to last. And there are people who say: What do you mean? That was an unacceptable, criminal regime, it was pronounced to be a criminal regime by a Czech law and everything, which happened during this regime, all those incarcerations, executions, confiscations, were illegal. Of course, where there are still people with a Communist past, they do not want to, these new owners, to incur any damage. Another thing I will tell you. Confirmation of my suggestion that this paper is fraudulent, that it did not originate at the Commission that it originated with the Czech government. They are repeating in this Summary Findings that there were International Compensation Agreements and that should mean that everything has been compensated. This is what Czech politicians used to maintain. Yes. I have the agreement between the United States and Czechoslovakia from 1982 here. Nothing to do with restitutions at all and nothing to do with Benes decrees, nothing to do with nothing. Why do they mention it? I would like to know. This is just to confuse, just to add some confusion to the matter. If you want to know what it is, I do not know how much time I have, I could explain it in detail. Nothing to do with it. So, as I say; this is a very simple matter. This is discrimination of the worst sort condemned by United Nations, circumvented by the European Court. Maybe it does not belong here directly but as the gentleman mentioned it, I will say that the Court said that they cannot judge discrimination alone, that they have to judge discrimination if it is connected to something else. Connected to ownership? But there was no ownership! The Communists took it! The people never had it, so what kind of an ownership do you talk about? This is all within the realm of the political agreement to bring Czechoslovakia in at any cost. And we are Czechs and we want the Czech Republic to join but not under these circumstances that there would be discrimination, that there would be fraud, and I am telling you responsibly that this paper is a fraud. It’s a fraud committed by the European Commission and the Czech government together. Thank you.

 Dagmar Karsch:

My name is Dagmar Karsch and I am coming from the Czech Republic. I would like to explain all this very shortly. This confusion after the brutal expelling of the Sudeten Germans in the year 1945, 1946 came in the year 1948 the Communist putsch. We thought that that would go away. Unfortunately did the Communists hold the country in the Communist quagmire. After this Communist power seizure there were all private trades, all agriculture, all businesses, it came to a total confiscation. And this confiscation lasted until 1989 till the fall of Communism. Then we thought that there would again come back democracy and a legal state. Unfortunately that did not happen. Citizens, European Union, NATO, the whole world was cheated by the Communists, because it was no velvet revolution it was a hand-over of the bankrupt Communist regime of the bankrupt Czechoslovakia to the selected Communists, to the hand-picked secret police people and this state lasts up to today. In power in the Czech Republic are the offspring, relatives, friends, buddies, and nepotism. The continuation with the former Communist regime never ceased to exist. This so-called nomenclature reigns up to today. And for that there is proof. These so-called “Tunnel companies”, these fraudulent collapses if companies, that is all organized by Communists and secret police members. As gloomy this sounds so true it is. We can read about it in the newspapers. I brought with me some newspapers. Prager Zeitung in German. It has it published quite openly. I have to say it so gloomily, that there are Mafia-like groupings of Communists and secret police people. I know that from my home village. I am after a company which came to such a fraudulent bankruptcy, where 28 workers, among them my son, and I am after this company, where it came to a damage of a quarter of a billion. In the Czech Republic it is not possible to achieve a just outcome. The confiscated properties have still not been restored in the proper way. Unfortunately, this is the state of affairs in the Czech Republic. I thank you.