The Baltic states pushed on 14 October for an international debate on the notorious 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - which handed the region to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union - as they held a conference at the European Parliament in Brussels. “In Poland we used to say that World War II ended in 1989, as it did in Romania, but it ended in 1990 for the three Baltic States,” said the host of the conference, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said in his opening speech.
The speaker of Lithuania’s parliament, Irena Degutiene, said that “adequate evaluation of the crimes committed by the totalitarian regimes and, most importantly, of their consequences must become part and parcel of the common European identity and the shared value system.”
The issue is controversial because Russia, the EU’s biggest neighbour and its largest supplier of fuel, says that attempts to highlight the pact falsify history and glorify Nazism. “Misinterpretation of what happened in history leads to misinterpretation of what is happening right now in countries neighbouring the EU (...) This conference will help to bring more awareness to Western countries,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) quoted Lithuania’s Justice Minister Remigijus Simasius as saying.
The secret protocols of the pact divided Eastern Europe into “spheres of influence,” allowing Hitler to invade Poland and granting Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland to Stalin. Tens of thousands of people across the region were killed or deported in the repression which followed. “We can never forget those victims for they are a reminder of where we come from, and show us how much we have achieved,” Buzek, a Pole, said.
The Baltic states argue that Russia, the legal successor to the USSR, should pay them compensation for the damage caused by the subsequent 50 years of Soviet occupation. “It is very difficult to overestimate the harm done by this occupation. If you accept that there was harm, you of course go to the question of whether you can find someone who may pay the bill ... The question is very legitimate,” Simasius said. “If the other side think that they didn’t do any harm to Lithuania or that they brought us nice things and we have to compensate them, of course it’s their position, but we have a different view,” he said.
Russia, which sees the USSR as the state which liberated the Baltics from Nazism, rejects such claims and accuses the Baltics of Nazi sympathies - claims which some Western politicians echo.
“Western leaders are sometimes misled by Russian leaders’ nice words about how democratic they are and how liberal democracy is flourishing in Russia. They do not see the signs of totalitarian ideology in the official language of Russia,” Simasius said. “I do not say that Russia has to be isolated (...) but we do not have to forget historical issues. Main streets in Russia are still called Communism Street and Lenin Street, and there are still monuments to criminals in central squares,” he said.
Conference organizers said that their purpose was to “debate further steps needed to safeguard the historical memory and to deepen public awareness about the crimes of the two largest totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.” Simasius stressed that the conference was not aimed against Russia, since it dealt with both Nazi and Soviet crimes.
Nonetheless, “the attitude in Germany and Russia towards history and towards responsibility is completely different. While Germany is at least trying to deal with this issue, including compensation to individual victims, Russia is practically denying the harm,” he said. The conference was attended by members of the European Parliament and historians and officials from across the EU. EU Justice  Commissioner Jacques Barrot and top officials from the Swedish government, which currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, also addressed the meeting. On 13 October, several hundred people in Latvia’s capital, Riga, laid wreaths at a Soviet-era monument to commemorate what they saw as the city’s liberation by the Red Army. In 2007, ethnic Russians rioted in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, to protest at the relocation of a Soviet war memorial.