The Head of State advocated in his speech in favor of a very rapid action of European democratic forces to stop this extremism.
Traian Basescu stated that, until recently, Romania would not recognize that Holocaust-related actions were held on its territory and would not acknowledge that Romanian citizens of Jewish ethnicity had been victims of this barbaric ideology.
"It is the merit of former President Ion Iliescu, who agreed to set up the Wiesel Commission for the Holocaust investigation in Romania and the merit of the following governments that developed the recommendations of the Wiesel Commission," the president said, adding that there are still many things to be done, Mediafax reports.
The Head of State said that the Holocaust was acknowledged 10 years ago, but " the awareness of this criminal accident in our history will still take a long time to process”
‘It is one thing to admit it officially at state level and it is another thing until the population, as a whole, will become aware of what happened in Romani during 1933 -1944. There are still many Romanians who say: It did not happen on Romanian territory and geographical speculations are easy to make, but the reality is that Jews from Romania were transported via Romanian railway, escorted by the Romanian army, to Transnistria , where they were subjected to forced labour and death’, president Traian Basescu stated.
Băsescu mentioned that "it takes work to process this fact" and added that he was concerned about the present times.
After Europe went through the Holocaust drama today amid a prolonged economic crisis, we see that the far left and right extremism, the neo-fascism are again catching roots in Europe, "the president said during the decoration ceremony, advocating for an extremely tough reaction of Europe on the matter.
Traian Băsescu stated that the European democratic forces must act quickly. "I saw action in Greece, against an extremist party and I congratulate the Greek government that outlawed it, we see Jobbik party in Hungary, we see Ms. Le Pen’s party in France and other keep appearing everywhere," the President of Romania said.
The head of state said, in the end of his speech, that Romania is a state that will fight for democracy. "I say with satisfaction that, although we had elections in 2012, in December, after a period of strong crisis in Romania there is no extremist party in Parliament," the president continued.