He will also invite his colleagues in person to the joint remembrance to be held in Budapest. EU Member States decided on the memorial day in 2011, at the initiative of the Hungarian justice presidency of the Council of the European Union. The first remembrance took place at the time of Poland’s EU Presidency, and representatives of the Member States first honoured the memory of the victims of totalitarian regimes on 23 August last year in Warsaw.

In response to a Hungarian-Polish-Lithuanian initiative, the justice ministers of EU Member States decided at the last justice session of Hungary’s EU Presidency, on 9 June 2011, on commemorating the victims of crimes committed by totalitarian regimes in a joint statement.

The document was approved in Luxembourg on 10 June 2011. With this statement, the European Union took an historic step towards raising awareness of the common European past and reinforcing collective remembrance. The approved Council Conclusion lays down that on the day of the anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August, the signatory Member States remember the victims of totalitarian dictatorships, and simultaneously invites Member States to consider how to commemorate it, in the light of their own history and specificities.

The document encourages the Member States and the Commission to raise or support initiatives aiming at informing and educating the public about Europe’s totalitarian past, including programmes, research projects, conferences and works of art, and last but not least invites the Commission to examine how to foster participation of the beneficiaries from the Eastern partnership countries and Russia in common initiatives and projects.

Source: kormany.hu