THE Bundestag yesterday overwhelming approved an accord with the Czech Republic aimed at ending half a century of bitterness and resentment between the two countries. In the declaration, Germany also expresses support for Czech membership of the EU and NATO.
Only 20 of the parliament's 621 deputies voted against the declaration, which was signed in Prague last week by the German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, and the Czech Prime Minister, Mr Vaclav Klaus.
The accord contains expressions of sorrow and regret from both sides for events during and after the second World War. Bonn apologises for the Nazi occupation of the Czech region of Sudetenland between 1938 and 1945 and Prague expresses regret for the expulsion of 2.5 million ethnic Germans at the end of the war.
A Green deputy, Ms Antje Vollmer, welcomed the declaration as the finishing stone to Germany's policy of reconciliation with its eastern neighbours and paid tribute to Dr Kohl's single mindedness in pursuing it despite noisy criticism from his own ranks.
The agreement, which took two years to negotiate, has been criticised in both countries. The Sudeten Germans, who form a significant pressure group among the Chancellor's allies in the Bavarian Christian Social Union, complain that it does not properly address the issue of compensation for confiscated property.
Bavaria's Prime Minister, Mr Edmund Stoiber, gave a qualified welcome to the accord but complained that the Sudeten Germans had not been adequately consulted during the negotiations.
He called on the government to involve the Sudeten Germans in every future stage of the dialogue between Germany and the Czech Republic, and insisted that Bonn had no right to negotiate away the rights of Germans to claim compensation for lost property.
Prague has given no indication that it is prepared to pay compensation and Mr Gregor Gysi, the parliamentary leader of the excommunist Party of Democratic Socialism, warned that Bonn was raising false hopes among Sudeten Germans by suggesting that payment could be forthcoming.
