Madam, - I found myself stunned and frankly dismayed after reading Denis Staunton's European Diary of February 11th. Apparently there is some opposition to the proposal by the Hungarian Fidez party that persons associated with disgraced Communist regimes of the former Soviet bloc should not be permitted to hold power in the EU's governmental structures.
As a former guest in Budapest and with friends in both the Czech Republic and Hungary, I could not agree more with this resolution.
Time and again I was made painfully aware of the brutal reign of terror both of these countries endured at the hands of the Soviets themselves and indirectly from the forces of the Warsaw Pact in 1956 and 1968.
Much to my shame I was reminded that, while home-grown Communist tyrannies blossomed, the Western European community dithered and twiddled its thumbs and the Social Democratic movement looked the other direction.
I would appeal to this Irish Presidency of the European Union to take the first step in lifting that sense of shame and backing the call that there should be no place in a truly united European parliament for former apparatchiks, spymasters and puppets of descredited régimes.
What more reassuring welcome could we give our new citizens? - Yours, etc.,
RONAN GUCKIAN, Brewery Road, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.