Czech MEP dismisses Posselt’s words on Beneš decrees

Czech MEP Jan Zahradil, of the Civic Democrats, has dismissed as “aggressive rhetoric” a call by Bernd Posselt, the leader of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft, for the Czech Republic to rescind the Beneš decrees. The decrees led to the expulsion of Czechoslovakia's Sudeten German population of around 2.5 million after World War II. On Friday Mr Posselt said the Czech Republic should take advantage of its EU presidency to lift the decrees and, in his words, “come to terms with its own history”. But Mr Zahradil responded by saying that the Czech EU presidency would definitely not deal with matters which he said had already been addressed – and closed - on bilateral as well as multilateral levels.