Council of Europe may consider resolution on war reparations

In the coming weeks, a draft resolution may be presented to the Council of Europe regarding the possibility of countries from beyond the former Iron Curtain claiming war reparations from Germany, PAP has been told by a ruling party MP.

Arkadiusz Mularczyk, an MP of the Law and Justice party, who headed a government team that compiled a report on Poland's wartime losses, told PAP the draft resolution would concern the problem of a lack of legal recourse to satisfy through the courts the claims of some victims of World War II.

Mularczyk said that during talks this week with Council of Europe (CoE) politicians, a proposition had emerged, "to consider preparing a draft resolution on studying German policy in the field of exercising the right to fair compensation for all victims of the Second World War, the refusal to rectify these matters in the form of bilateral agreements, and the lack of a legal course of action for victims of the Second World War, and especially for victims from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Greece, Italy and Serbia."

He said he had met with key members of the Council including the secretary generals of the CoE and its parliamentary assembly, the assembly's president, leaders of political groupings and representatives of the Greek, Serbian and Turkish delegations.

According to him, the proposal had met with interest from the majority of politicians he had spoken to and he expressed hope that the draft resolution would be on the agenda of the Council of Europe's January session

"I would like to prepare such a draft resolution in the coming weeks and send it to all my interlocutors," Mularczyk said. "So that it is not exclusively an initiative of the Polish delegation but is a cross-party draft to conduct a certain query and investigate the problem of a lack of equal rights to compensation and a legal route for victims of World War II from certain countries and the lack of possibility to satisfy their claims in the form of a judicial investigation," he said.

Mularczyk went on to argue that the lack of a legal course of action and Germany's reluctance to settle the matter through bilateral agreements were breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights, which he said he expected to be at the core of the resolution. He also said he would ask all political groups in the Council of Europe to sign the draft resolution and support it.

He added that all countries of the Council of Europe should be interested in how Germany observes basic rules of human rights and the rule of law towards victims of the war.

Mularczyk also said that during his meetings with the Greek, Serbian and Turkish delegations he had given them copies of Poland's report on its war losses and the main provisions of a diplomatic note sent to the German government.

The diplomatic note was sent to Berlin in early October by Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, following publication of Mularczyk's report on September 1, which put Poland's wartime losses at EUR 1.3 trillion.

Germany's foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said during her visit to Warsaw on October 4 that the matter of Poland's World War Two reparations claim is closed from Berlin's point of view.