Prague, March 1 (CTK) – The activity of the Charter 77 Czech dissident movement standing up against the communist regime had a significant influence on the Fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War in Europe, European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said in Prague yesterday.
Along with Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) and other guests, Timmermans appreciated the importance of the dissident movements at an event marking the meeting between Charter 77 spokesman Jan Patocka and Dutch foreign minister Max van der Stoel 40 years ago.
Europe would have been divided much longer without Charter 77 and the Polish Solidarity movement, Timmermans said in his speech.
People from the East won the Cold War, which should not be forgotten, he added.
The present united Europe exists thanks to Patocka and other Charter 77 signatories, he pointed out.
Sobotka remembered the courage of those who represented Charter 77 in public and demanded that the state guarantee people’s freedoms and rights.
“We must highly esteem breakthrough moments in Czech history and the personalities who crucially contributed to these events,” Sobotka said.
He said the past events’ effect still persists.
“The less certain the time is, the more we are obliged to protect citizens against attempts at dismantling democratic Europe, irrespective of their outward presentation as democratic,” Sobotka said.
Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek (CSSD) called the anti-regime involvement of the Charter 77 signatories one of the most significant moments of the Czech and Czechoslovak 20th-century history.
He compared it with the 1942 assassination of Nazi Deputy Reichsprotector Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovak paratroopers, the Prague Spring communist-led reform movement and the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 that prompted the collapse of the communist regime.
Other speakers, including one of the first Charter 77 signatories Petr Pithart and journalist Dick Verkijk, who organised the meeting in 1977, mentioned Patocka’s fate.
Philosopher Patocka (1907-1977) died 12 days after the meeting as a consequence of a long interrogation by the StB communist secret police.
Verkijk played yesterday a sound recording of the meeting between Patocka and van der Stoel, in which Patocka explained in German that the aim of Charter 77 was not to fight the regime, but that its signatories only demanded the observance of the valid constitution and other laws.
Pithart said “Charter 77 was oriented neither left- nor rightwards. It was neither socialist nor conservative. It was just where it should have been.”
He said Patocka and van der Stoel moved Europe 40 years ago when they each diverted from his natural position of an inconspicuous philosopher and a protocol-observing politician, respectively, and both bore the consequences.
Present politicians should not be afraid to behave in the same way in crucial situations, Pithart said.
“They should not risk a temporary loss of power, a fall in popularity and even a weaker election result when a fundamental issue is at stake,” Pithart said.
Van der Stoel was the first Western politician to contact Czech dissidents through Patocka.
He blamed himself sometimes for Patocka facing the StB’s hard pressure because of the meeting with him, Timmermans said.
However, thanks to Van der Stoel, the Charter 77 movement drew international attention and was recognised.
Van der Stoel (1924-2011) was foreign minister of the Netherlands in 1973-77 and 1981-82. In 1992-2000, he was the first high commissioner for ethnic minorities of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He received a number of high state decorations, including the Masaryk Order from Czech president Vaclav Havel.
A new monument commemorates van der Stoel’s support for Czechoslovak dissidents as of yesterday, jointly unveiled by Timmermans and Zaoralek in the Max van der Stoel Park in Prague, situated close to Patocka street.
The sculpture by Dominik Lang is shaped as a shadow of a tree symbolising the impact the above meeting had on Czech history.
Yesterday’s commemorative event and the monument unveiling ceremony were attended by the offspring of both Patocka and van der Stoel, Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL), former foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09), diplomat and Vaclav Havel Library director Michael Zantovsky and former prime minister, former EU commissioner and now the prime minister’s chief adviser Vladimir Spidla (CSSD).
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