The Benes decrees: Implications for EU enlargement
Written by Heather Grabbe, 07 June 2002
This year's succession of election campaigns in Central and Eastern Europe has seen an increasing willingness on the part of right-wing populists to play up historical injustices and past hatreds to gain political advantage. Much debate has centred on the decrees of Edvard Benes, post-war Czechoslovak president, which legitimised the removal of the Czechoslovak citizenship of German and Hungarian minorities, and the expropriation of their property after 1945.
