![The Benes decrees: Implications for EU enlargement The Benes decrees: Implications for EU enlargement](https://www.cer.eu/sites/default/files/styles/spotlight/public/images/spotlight/publication/europe_pin_globe-1345622852.jpg?itok=IOAfXYug)
The Benes decrees: Implications for EU enlargement
This year's succession of election campaigns in Central and Eastern Europe has seen an increasing willingness on the part of right-wing populists to play up historical injustices and past hatreds to gain political advantage. Much debate has centred on the decrees of Edvard Benes, post-war Czechoslovak president, which legitimised the removal of the Czechoslovak citizenship of German and Hungarian minorities, and the expropriation of their property after 1945.