Looking Back in Anger

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Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi tried to ease tensions, saying his country had no intention of turning the Benes decrees into a subject of the E.U. membership talks. He added that Hungary was prepared to host another Visegrad summit on any date in the future that would be suitable for all four countries. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kavan said he hoped the cooperation among the Visegrad companies would continue and that the summit could be held at another time. But Jaroslav Chlebo, state secretary of the Slovak Foreign Ministry, warned on 21 February that the dispute could cause "long-term discord" between Slovakia and Hungary, according to a Reuters story cited by RFE/RL.

Meanwhile, the issue has created concerns among Czech and Slovak observers that the decrees might be challenged after the two countries join the E.U., opening the way to a flood of restitution claims. Czech Chamber of Deputies chairman Vaclav Klaus said on 21 February that the Czech Republic should ask for a legal guarantee from the E.U. that the Benes decrees will not be challenged after the country joins the union.

The European Commission has repeatedly said that the issue will not be raised as part of the enlargement process and would not constitute a stumbling bloc for Czech and Slovak membership in the E.U. Analysts have said that Orban's comments are most likely related to the upcoming elections in Hungary, which are due in April. But with elections also due later this year in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, it might be difficult to ease the tensions any time soon.

Orban's comments also drew criticism from Hungarian opposition politicians, with former Hungarian foreign minister and Socialist Party president Laszlo Kovacs calling on the prime minister to refrain from speaking about foreign issues until after Hungary's April elections.

The tensions over Orban's comments come at a time when Bratislava and Budapest are involved in another dispute over Hungary's new Status Law, which went into effect earlier this year and grants certain rights to ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries. Slovak politicians have harshly criticized the law, and the parliament in Bratislava has passed a motion describing it as an infringement on Slovakia's sovereignty. There are about 500,000 ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia.

With the dispute over the Status Law still unresolved, Orban added fuel to the fire when he noted on 13 February that Hungary, as a member of NATO, has the power to approve or veto Slovakia's bid to join the alliance.

Meanwhile, the Benes decrees have also been the cause of diplomatic tension between the Czech Republic and its Austrian and German neighbors. Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman seemed to set off the latest round of tensions when he described the Sudeten Germans as Hitler's "fifth column" in Czechoslovakia in a January interview with the Austrian weekly Profil. While Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Shuessel later called on the Czechs to formally scrap the Benes decrees, the Austrian government has also stressed that it will not block the Czech Republic's entry into the E.U. over the issue.

But a few weeks later, while on a visit to Israel, Zeman again brought up the issue when he compared Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Hitler and the Palestinians to the Sudeten Germans. He also compared Austrian politician Joerg Haider to Hitler.