Abstract: The unification of Europe after the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain enabled European peoples to learn more about each other’s past. This was important in order to understand each other better, considering that we are living together in the same community. For this purpose, it is of paramount significance to promote remembrance of the crimes of totalitarian regimes – not only of Nazism and Fascism, but also of Totalitarian Communism. 

 The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, after a debate which lasted three years, adopted on the 25th of January 2006 Resolution 1481/2006 on the Need for Condemnation of the Crimes of Totalitarian Communist Regimes, followed by a Reply of the Committee of Ministers on Written Question No. 486 on December 18, 2006, which stated that the Committee of Ministers firmly condemns crimes committed by totalitarian regimes in the name of communist ideology. It was followed by the Resolution of the European Parliament of April 2, 2009, and of the Parliamentary Assembly of OSCE on July 3, 2009, reaffirming the same position as that of PACE.

Latchezar Toshev is an Honorary Associate of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.