By Martin Banks - 17th January 2012
It is a pity for him to go out on a sour note
Sarah Ludford
Parliament's outgoing president Jerzy Buzek has been condemned for honouring Spanish Francoist politician Manual Fraga.
The move was branded a "cheap trick" as Buzek handed over the reins of the presidency to German deputy Martin Schulz.
The attack on Buzek comes after he asked for a minute's silence for Fraga along with the late Czech statesman Vaclav Havel in the plenary in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
The respected Polish MEP said Fraga, who died on 15 January, was a "great" statesman, a "key" architect of Spain's democratisation, a founder of the Partido Popular and, in the 1980s, an MEP.
Buzek, who stepped down as president on Tuesday, also asked that Fraga's daughter, Carmen Fraga Estévez, herself an MEP, convey parliament's condolences to her family.
But the move to pay tribute to her father was condemned by Liberal Democrat European human rights spokeswoman Sarah Ludford.
She said, "Havel's democratic and human rights credentials underpinned his whole life, while Fraga never renounced or apologised for the repressive standards of the Franco regime he served.
"Linking the two was a cheap trick, presumably to head off an MEPs' protest."
"Buzek has done some good work as president, and it is a pity for him to go out on a sour note.
"But the suspicion that he orchestrated this twinning deliberately to please his political friends is confirmed by his airbrushing of Fraga's fascist past out of his tribute."
"The EU was founded as a reaction to the horrors of dictatorship. It is an insult not just to Havel’s memory, but to that the millions of people who suffered and died at the hands of authoritarian regimes like Franco's."
