Institute Director Pavel Žáček Proposes Establishment of a Platform of European Memory and Conscience at European Parliament Conference
BRUSSELS, October 14, 2009 – Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes Director Pavel Žáček proposed the establishment of a Platform of European Memory and Conscience on Wednesday, October 14, during a day-long conference in the European Parliament in Brussels titled “Europe 70 Years After the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.” The conference, held within the scope of the Swedish presidency of the Council of the European Union and espousing the aim of better understanding the historical role played by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, commenced with speeches by President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament Irena Degutiene, Chairman of the Latvian Parliament Gundars Daudze, MEP and former President of the Constitutional Assembly of the Republic of Lithuania Vytautas Landsbergis, and State Secretary for EU Affairs from the Office of the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sweden Maria Asenius. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or non-agression pact between Hitler and Stalin, included a secret protocol dividing Central and Eastern Europe into Soviet and German spheres of influence that ultimately became the foundation for the post-war creation of the Communist Bloc and the installation of totalitarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe for an additional 40 years.
The conference’s two sessions, “Europe from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to the Fall of the Berlin Wall” and “Politics of Memory: National, European, Global,” comprised panels that addressed not only the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact itself and its consequences, but also national experiences of dealing with Europe’s totalitarian past and prospects for its appraisal at the European and international level.
During the conference’s second session, Director Žáček launched the panel “Strengthening Research and Increasing Public Awareness: Possible Initiatives at the EU Level” with the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regime’s proposal for the establishment of a Platform of European Memory and Conscience. Camilla Andersson of Sweden’s Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism rounded out the panel, which concluded with a debate with the floor, including Andrea Valič of Slovenia’s Study Centre for National Reconciliation and Ronaldas Račinskas of the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.
Director Žáček proposed the creation of a Platform of European Memory and Conscience as an organization based on an intergovernmental agreement that would be created with the help of partner institutions and commence operation under the Polish EU-Presidency in the first half of 2011, potentially with its seat in Prague. He further expressed the Institute’s intention to use the occasion of its upcoming February 2010 “Crimes of the Communist Regimes” conference to present a draft Statute of the intergovernmental organization.