Ohne die Aufarbeitung der totalitären Vergangenheit lässt sich die Zukunft nicht gestalten. Dies ist auch die Lehre aus den deutschen Erfahrungen. Eine wesentliche Voraussetzung für den Aufbau und die Stabilität demokratischer Gesellschaften in Europa ist die Aufarbeitung der kommunistischen Vergangenheit. Die Länder Südosteuropas und Russland, denen in dieser Ausgabe zwei Berichte gewidmet sind, weisen in diesem Bereich noch immer große Defizite auf. In einer Reihe von Ländern, einschließlich Deutschland, sind nach wie vor Parteien tätig, die in direkter Traditionslinie zu dieser Geschichte stehen. Deren Anhänger müssten sich in besonderem Maße dazu verpflichtet fühlen, sich mit dieser Geschichte auseinanderzusetzen.

by Gerhard Wahlers

Bulgaria is not doing well in overcoming its communist past. It was only one year ago that the most comprehensive law so far was launched to open the records, and none of the leading politicians of the communist era has yet been brought to book. There is hardly any coming to terms with the past, called ‘lustration’.

by Dirk Förger, Christiana Christova

In its foreign relations, the EU accords priority to promoting and consolidating democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in its partner countries. More than that, its partners must acknowledge these principles to be granted assistance and to benefit from trade liberalisation. At the time of the Cold War, it was difficult to communicate these values in European political cooperation without conflict.

by Maria Zandt

Within today’s development policy, budget assistance is regarded as the new and the best method. In the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, both donor and receiving countries refer to the necessity of pursuing self-responsible strategies to fight poverty and to budget assistance as a tool of development cooperation. It even is to be the first choice wherever the conditions prevailing in the partner countries permit it.

by Ingo Scholz, Johannes Plagemann

The discovery that natural gas can be instrumentalised in international politics was made a while ago, one example being the Turkish-Iranian gas crisis of January 2007 when, in breach of contract, Iran stopped its gas deliveries so that Turkey had to realise that it needed to tap other sources next to natural gas to secure its own power generation. And not only Turkey but Europe as a whole need to diversify their sources of gas supply.

by Fahri Türk

With the parliamentary elections of December 23, 2007, Thailand has returned to democracy fifteen months after the military coup. Prior to the poll, a new constitution was adopted which was backed by far more than half the population. However, it is by no means certain that the outcome of the parliamentary elections marks the beginning of a course towards establishing a stable democratic order.

by Canan Atilgan

Between 2005 and 2007, some interesting works on the country’s foreign policy under Mr Putin’s presidency were published in Russia. However, critical analyses of Mr Putin’s foreign-policy decisions are rare.

by Aschot Manutscharjan