Government Considers Issue of Benes Decrees Closed

        Vysny Orlik, 26 November (TASR) - The government considers the issue of post-war documents concerning the settlement of relations after World War II in Slovakia (the so-called Benes Decrees) to be closed, and it rejects the idea of revising post-war documents concerning this topic and the politicisation of this issue.
        This is according to a statement on the inviolability of post-war documents concerning the settlement of relations after World War II in Slovakia that the government approved at its away-from-home session in Presov region on Wednesday. The proposal was tabled by the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
        The government declared that legal acts of representative bodies of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Slovak National Council on the settlement of relations after World War II are part of Slovakia's legal order, adopted as part of the post-war settlement following the defeat of Nazism and based on the principles of international law, and no new legal relationships can arise on their basis. Furthermore, the cabinet declared that the legal and property relations established by these decisions are indisputable, inviolable and immutable.
        "The Slovak government expresses its concern over calls to revise the so-called Benes Decrees, which cause unnecessary tension, misunderstandings and polarisation in society. At the same time, it strongly rejects efforts to politicise this chapter of European history. The legal acts regulating the post-World War II situation in what was then Czechoslovakia must be viewed in the context of the post-war order in Europe [and] in the context of the post-war order in Europe established by the allies of the anti-fascist coalition," stated the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
        According to the ministry, the Benes Decrees represent the historical and legal heritage of the former Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, or the Czechoslovak Republic respectively. They were a response to pre-war events, in particular the Munich Agreement and the Vienna Arbitration, as well as subsequent events during World War II. "The so-called Benes Decrees are an integral part of the Slovak (or formerly Czechoslovak) legal system. The government considers the issue of the so-called Benes Decrees to be closed, and the European Commission shares this view," it stated.
        The Foreign Ministry pointed out that Parliament adopted a resolution on the inviolability of post-war documents concerning the post-war settlement in Slovakia. [In this, it] declared that the post-war decisions of representative bodies of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Slovak National Council have not caused discriminatory practices and cannot give rise to new legal relationships today.
        During an outreach visit by the opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) party to southern Slovakia last week, the PS parliamentary group in Komarno (Nitra region) on Thursday (20 November) adopted a resolution on coexistence and development in southern Slovakia. Among other points, it called on the government to make gestures of goodwill towards ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia, which may include acknowledging that Czechoslovak authorities committed violations of humanitarian principles and other wrongs against the Hungarian community in the post-war period.
        According to the PS resolution, such gestures may also include adopting measures "to ensure that state authorities, when assessing lawsuits on determining ownership of property connected with confiscation decisions, observe the principle that the decrees of the president of the Czechoslovak Republic, as part of Slovak law, have expired and cannot serve as a basis for decisions creating new legal realities".
        PS's statements have drawn strong criticism from coalition parties as well as from the opposition Christian Democratic Movement (KDH). Its vice-chair Viliam Karas stated that although PS believes it is appealing to voters of Hungarian nationality, "in reality it does nothing but introduce tension in society and awaken old wrongs that may harm all of us – Slovaks and Hungarians alike".