The President of the Institute in the European Parliament on the 70th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Janusz Kurtyka, the President of the Institute of National Remembrance took part in a conference held in the European Parliament on the 70th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The conference was held on October 14, 2009 and the President participated in the panel entitled ‘Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its consequences to further developments in Europe’, where he said inter alia that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the key event in the recent history of states and peoples of Central Europe, which became subject of Soviet aggression and annexation. The Pact has had long-term consequences associated with the destruction of the Versailles order and its substitution with a system of spheres of influence, which also affected the countries not being the direct target of the attack in the years 1939-1940. After the war, however, these countries found themselves within the Soviet "outer empire". The President emphasized that despite USSR participation in the anti-Hitler coalition and the defeat of the Third Reich, Stalin never abandoned the concept of spheres of influence agreed with Hitler and forced it through in the postwar world.

The conference was organized by three Baltic states under the auspices of the President of the Parliament, Jerzy Buzek.