Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel praised Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek's plan to make a gesture towards Sudeten German anti-fascists who opposed the Nazi regime in Czechoslovakia during WW II. After a meeting with Paroubek, Schuessel said it was the first time that an acknowledgement that collective guilt should not be applied to the German minority had arisen. Paroubek has not yet disclosed the exact details of what such a gesture would involve. He plans to submit a proposal on the matter to the Czech Cabinet.
Verbal sparring between Paroubek and Czech President Vaclav Klaus over Paroubek's planned gesture towards Sudeten Germans who were loyal to pre-war Czechoslovakia continues to escalate, reports Lidove noviny (LN). Reacting to comments by Paroubek that Klaus's opposition to his
plan was probably due to a misunderstanding on the President's part, Klaus fired back that Paroubek appeared to have lost his mind. On his return from Vienna, Paroubek declined to comment any further, saying that it was undignified for senior state officials to swap jibes in the media.
Commenting on the whole situation in LN, Lubos Palata says Paroubek's planned gesture actually amounts to a gift for German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and not Austrian Chancellor Schuessel. This gift must make it to Schroeder in time, however, or else it will be opened by someone for whom it was not meant, namely [German opposition leader] Angela Merkel, says Palata. While the gift will not be a decisive factor in Germany's upcoming general elections, it would also be a gesture towards Schroeder, who has done more for Czech-German relations than any chancellor before him. While it was not Schroeder himself who signed the Czech-German declaration, the treaty's pledges were actually fulfilled during Schroeder's term, says Palata.