Dear Prime Minister ,Mr. Secretary General, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,
It is with great pleasure that I stand before you today. Allow me to thank the Swedish government for this exceptional work and commitment dedicated to holding the series of the four International Forums.

I would also like to thank our Swedish hosts for the warm hospitality and exceptional organisation of this conference. My participation today to this solemn event that brings tribute to the victims of collective racial reprisals and opens wide perspectives on the future, in the company of such distinguished guests, represents a confirmation of our moral duty to spare no effort in combating anti-Semitic or xenophobic manifestations and in preventing any crime against humanity from happening again.

Genocide is the absolute negation of the human rights of the individual as well as of the right to existence of the group to which he or she belongs. It is the most serious denial of the dignity of an entire group – and in its starkest form – complete annihilation. The reality of such large-scale suffering is almost beyond human comprehension.

The international community must continue to build constructive means to strengthen early warning and take action to prevent abominable human rights violations. Romania fully agrees on the draft declaration of this Forum.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Providing knowledge about the dark aspects of history, including any form of discrimination, is important for both an ethnic majority and a minority. Yet, it represents only the first step. Secondly, where there is a history of crimes against humanity, it cannot and should not be erased from the collective memory of the generations that follow. It is a reminder that things can go terribly wrong if we do not guard against racism and xenophobia. Majorities have to come to terms with the past and assume responsibility. Such an endeavour has to focus not only on the academic field, but also on the general public, by increasing its awareness through formal and informal education.

As regards Romania, a country whose people experienced totalitarianism for almost half of the past century, we have a moral duty to strive even more to make the future generations understand the dangers of systematic crimes against peoples, and to turn the lessons learned from the past into means to prevent discriminative action from ever happening again. We think that we have now the chance of becoming an example of good practice in Europe, and in promoting values such as tolerance, democracy, respect for the human dignity.

In my country, we created a legislative framework and institutional support in order to combat racism, discrimination and xenophobia. Moreover, our legislation is perfectly tuned to international norms and recommendations regarding the combat of discrimination. We are the first country in Central and Southeastern Europe to establish, in 2001, a National Council for Combating Discrimination, complying already with the European Union’s directives. This Council is an independent institution mandated to investigate discrimination actions on the basis of self-formulated complaints. It has the power to sanction discrimination, offer mediation, contribute in a substantial manner to further develop the anti-discrimination legislation framework in Romania. It cooperates with similar organisations and with non-governmental organisations in the field of human rights in other states as well as with specialised international organisations.

We now have the moral duty to keep alive the memory of the victims of collective racial reprisals as part of our efforts to combat all discriminatory, xenophobic or anti-Semitic attitude or action.

As for the study of the Holocaust, a Historical Commission was set up in October 2003 in Romania. Headed by Mr. Elie Wiesel, it includes historians as well as other public figures. Its role is to analyse Romania’s recent history and particularly the issue of the Holocaust and to bring to public knowledge the result of this research. The establishment and acceptance of the historic truth are essential conditions for ensuring civic responsibility and human rights, as defined in the declaration of the previous Stockholm International Forum, in 2000, dedicated to the Holocaust. Especially during the recent years, my country has proved its commitment to further educate the youth and the wider public against intolerance and anti-Semitism through formal and informal educational structures. A Commission of reputed historians was set up in 1998 by the Education Ministry. Its role was to make recommendations concerning the inclusion of Holocaust education in school and high school history textbooks.

Since 1999, the study of the Holocaust was introduced in the new history curricula and included in the history textbooks. The Nazi actions against the Jews, the legionary regime in Romania, the Antonescu regime, but also the instances of the solidarity of ordinary Romanians with the Jewish community are among the compulsory topics to be studied in Romanian secondary and high schools.

Another important priority for us is training the teachers themselves. With the assistance of Yad Vashem and other international organisations active in this field, the Universities and other several main important academic centres organise training sessions in Holocaust education and provide the teachers with new materials and methodologies. In December 2003, Romania was appointed official liaison country of the Task Force on International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF) ,a group created at the initiative of Prime Minster Göran Persson launched in 1998.

The Romanian Jewish Cultural Heritage, a project launched in October 2003, aims to recover, restore and promote the contribution of the cultural heritage of the Jewish population living in Romania to our common history. As I stressed before, Romania is dedicated to eliminating the deep causes of discriminatory attitudes by offering the best conditions of integration to all minorities. 20 national minorities hold seats in the Parliament even if the ethnic Romanians represent 90 percent of the population of the country .We have set different structures in Romania, dealing with problems of minorities and we try to learn from the Council of Europe, they work with many NGOs which are very efficient in Romania, and very helpful and I would like only to make a note, to mention the Project on ethnic relations and Romani Criss also regarding a problem which became a European topic, the Roma population.I would only mention here the fact that in 2001 we adopted a ten- year Strategy for improving the situation of the Roma that now is being thoroughly implemented at central and local levels.

Dear Friends, I’m sure that everyone here would try, would like to present various achievements but also I’m sure that we have to contemplate together the remaining threats, the problems that we have to face and I would like you to know that we came here – my colleagues and myself – to contribute to a successful debate, trying to learn from has been done in other countries and trying to bring our own experience in trying to stop events like those which took place in former Yugoslavia or Rwanda, to take place again. I think it is important for us to follow the Convention on Genocide, we ratified that Convention in 1950 and we are founding members of the International Criminal Court, a Court which will help us to have a very clear standard and punish those who are guilty of genocide. That’s why, let me at the end of my intervention emphasise also conflict prevention mechanism, also the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities on combating and also the Council of Europe Commission on combating Racism and Discrimination – tools which are so useful today. We have to learn from each other, we consider that it is very important now that we try to live up to the standards of the 21st Century, to learn from the lessons of the past and to try to build a better future for our generation and for the next generations.

Thank you very much for your attention.