EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: MEPS STRIKE DEAL ON MARKING END OF WORLD WAR II.

Emphasis on post-war oppression, too.

The call for a resolution to mark the end of the Second World War, which will be voted on by the Parliament on May 11, came originally from the EPP-ED group. The Party of European Socialists (PES) were originally opposed to having a resolution which would be subject to numerous amendments. Elmar Brok, Chairman of the EPs Foreign Affairs Committee, tabled a draft motion agreed by the committee, which formed the basis of negotiations. The key issues, pressed by Polish MEPs including Bronislaw Geremek (ALDE) and Wojciech Roszkowski (UEN) as well as MEPs from the Baltic states, were to ensure that the suffering of countries occupied by the Soviet Union after 1945 was reflected in the resolution.

The final text commemorates and mourns all the victims of Nazi tyranny and the Holocaust and expresses gratitude to all those who contributed to the liberation from National Socialism. It highlights the allied forces of nations who sacrificed their lives including those of the US, the UK, the Soviet Union and other Allied states. However, it notes that ofor some nationso the end of World War II oimplied a renewal of the tyranny inflicted by the Stalinist Soviet Uniono. It also highlights the omagnitude of suffering, injustice and long-term social, political and economic degradation of captive nationso on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain.

It hails the success of the European integration process and the transatlantic alliance as a oforceful answero to the lessons learned from past misfortunes and failures. It notes that the process of integration had helped overcome almost all post-war dictatorships on the European continent, both in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and in Spain, Portugal and Greece.

However, calls from MEPs to include mentions of the Yalta conference on the post-war division of Europe and the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were dropped.

EPP-ED leader Hans-Gert Pottering said that the final text of the resolution was a obalanced compromiseo which included a clear...