Germany re-opens the Sudeten German question

As the Czech Republic goes to the polls on 14th and 15th June, the country faces the question of its EU membership with increasing unease. In May, the European Parliament adopted a resolution demanding that the Benes decrees be examined for their compatibility with EU law. At the same time, the Chairman of the EP, Pat Cox, has set up a three-man commission to examine the question. With these two events, the EU has made the issue of the expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia in 1945 into a European issue, connecting it organically with the Czech admission to the EU. This is precisely the outcome the Czechs wanted to avoid, preferring to keep the issue bilateral between the Czech Republic and Germany, Austria and Hungary.