Brussels, 23/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - European Commission President Romano Prodi met a delegation of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) last Friday in Brussels, to discuss the situation in Austria, telling its members that he shared the concerns of the 14 other Member States and of the EJC and that the Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, "will be firm with any excess". The delegation, led by EJC President Mr Hajdenberg, included leaders of the Jewish communities of Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Russia.
A press release notes that Mr Prodi and the delegation discussed, further to the guidelines of the Stockholm Conference on the Shoah (on which Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh reported at the latest General Affairs Council, Ed.), the question of a common policy drawing the lessons of the past and of all racism and discrimination, and that Mr Prodi "expressed an interest in the idea of setting up a European institute of the history of the Shoah".