SLOVAKIA does not have any top leaders from the former communist regime still lingering in senior state positions, said PM Mikuláš Dzurinda in Brussels on February 5.
"Looking at the Slovak political scene - be it government, parliament, or many other positions - I dare say that you could not find a single former representative of the former regime," Dzurinda said at the European People's Party (EPP) congress, according to the news wire TASR.
However, Dzurinda's spokesman Martin Maruška later said that TASR had erroneously failed to note that Dzurinda was only referring to the three parties close to the EPP: his Slovak Democratic and Christian Union, the Hungarian Coalition Party, and the Christian Democratic Movement.
Dzurinda's statements came hours ahead of the vote taken among members of the European Parliament's strongest party on a draft resolution calling on those intending to work in EU bodies to come clean about their communist pasts.
The objective was to keep people from seeking European posts if they were part of coercive communist structures or had committed crimes against humanity.
Dzurinda agreed with the draft, which eventually stopped short of calling on all groups in the European Parliament to cleanse their ranks of senior representatives of the former communist regime in central and eastern Europe.
"We should remain reasonable and make distinctions between those who wanted to save themselves and signed on with the Communist Party and those who organised repressions," he added.
The resolution to be adopted by the EPP condemns all the crimes of communism and urges the European Union to follow suit. The draft also calls for the enlarged EU countries to thoroughly investigate all crimes of the communist era and bring to light documents that may help to achieve this end.
Compiled by Beata Balogová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
