28 January 2005
 
BRUSSELS – The three members of the European Parliament from Belgium’s extreme right Vlaams Belang party abstained from Thursday’s vote commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.
 
The EU’s legislative body adopted a resolution condemning the concentration and extermination camps built by the Nazis as “among the most shameful and painful pages of the history of our continent.”
 
It goes on to express concern about Jews in Europe experiencing a “heightened sense of security” due to anti-Semitism and calls for recognising the Holocaust formally across Europe every day on 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
 
The resolution was adopted by 617 votes to 0 with 10 abstentions, including the trio of Vlaams Belang deputies.
 
Frank Vanhecke, the party’s president, said he feared that the resolution would be used against parties who “fight for European values and European peoples,” Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure reported.
 
 [Copyright Expatica 2004]

Subject : Belgian news