madam president there is a further dimension to this debate
it is not only a united europe that needs urgently to look at the entirety of the past but the same is particularly true of the european left
without a thorough scrutiny of its past the left in some of the former communist states is obliged compels itself to live with a false past a past from which all sorts of painful events are screened out
this further forces the left to protect this false past and thereby its democratic credibility is eroded
seeing as the western left fully accepts this unreconstructed post-communist left as a legitimate partner it too finds itself obliged to defend an indefensible past
consequently its own commitment to democracy is to that extent weakened
