Row over Benes decrees rumbles on

The foreign minister of Austria, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, has delivered a sharp reprimand to an apparently conciliatory remark made by the Commissar for enlargement, Günther Verheugen, about the relationship between the Benes decrees and Czech admission to the EU. Verheugen had earlier falsely told the European Parliament that the Czech government had agreed to rescind the Benes decrees if it found them incompatible with EU law: no such undertaking had been given and the Czech Prime Minister slapped Verheugen down sharply. Verheugen then went to Prague and said that the Benes decrees were all in the past, that they had no judicial force any more, and therefore they should not become an issue in negotiations between the Czech Republic and the EU.