Since I assumed duties as special envoy on May 1st, I have begun visiting all of these countries. So far, I have visited Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, and have talked specifically about property restitution issues there. It is my intention before the Prague NATO summit to have gone to all of the aspirant countries, as well as to the three countries which joined NATO in the first round. I have also participated in Washington reviews of the reform process with visiting delegations from other NATO aspirant states and closely reviewed the actual state of restitution in all these countries.

Ranking colleagues in the State and Defense Departments and at the National Security Council have also traveled to NATO-aspirant capitals and engaged delegations and embassies here and in Washington. And they have travelled also to the countries which joined the alliance in the first -- in the more recent round of enlargement. They too have stressed the urgency of uniform and effective restitution procedures.

There are, of course, limitations on what the United States can properly do. Under accepted international law and practice, we can formally espouse individual claims -- that is, present a claim to a government -- only under very specific circumstances. We, therefore, concentrate our efforts on urging countries to put in place fair, transparent, non-discriminatory restitution processes and laws that will cover broad categories of cases.

While we have neither the authority nor the resources to advocate individual claims, our embassies and consulates abroad are able to help American citizen claimants understand what the legal requirements are in a specific country and to provide a list of attorneys who can assist in the preparation of an individual claim. That does not mean that we do not raise with governments the generic issues of hindrances and of defects in laws and regimes.

One good example of the assistance that we bring to bear is the material on the web site of our embassy in Bucharest. The site includes a description of the Romanian law and the process through which a claimant must go in order to qualify, and provides lists of those who can help.

As I noted above, we divide restitution into two broad categories, communal and private.

And here I might add, we expect in all the countries we deal with that both of these varieties of property will be dealt with. And in some countries, lamentably, there have been no laws on private restitution. Some of that -- and we can talk about the particulars in the question-and-answer period -- may be on the way to be mended. In other instances, not; in Russia and Ukraine, for instance, there is no prospect that I know of for private restitution laws coming forward.

Communal property is that which belonged to religious communities and
included places of worship, schools and health facilities and community halls. Such properties provided the physical facilities used by the Jewish communities in the shtetls of pre-war Central and Eastern Europe. Christian organizations of most denominations also possessed properties, some of which was nationalized or otherwise confiscated by the communist regimes, or earlier by the Nazis.

These communal properties represent significant assets.

United States government strongly supports the restitution of both private and communal property. Private claims, in their own right, are very important because they directly affect our citizens and taxpayers. And they have every right to expect that their government will do everything it can on behalf of their interests. Communal claims provide the economic wherewithal for small and struggling religious communities.

And in the appended country-by-country summary, which I believe has been
distributed to you, most countries, you can see, have made some or substantial progress on restitution of communal property. I would note that of the NATO aspirants, Romania is the only country that does not have a law governing communal property restitution, though one has, as of June 25th, passed both houses of the Romanian parliament, and in my understanding is only
waiting presidential signature, expected to go into force in August. During my visit to Bucharest in late June I was assured that it would be.

The bill provides for the restitution of communal property, unfortunately excluding places of worship, as it is described to us -- the restitution to the country's various religious groups.

It is currently awaiting, as I say, presidential signature. And we have not yet obtained a full text.

I know that the commission has had a particular interest in the fate of the property that the Romanian government took from the Greek Catholic or Uniate Church in the late 1940s. This is an issue which arises in Romania. It arose elsewhere in East European countries when Uniate Greek Catholic churches were taken during the Stalinist-era and given to the Orthodox Church.

During my visit in Romania, officials assured me that the communal property law would provide relief. And the department and the embassy will monitor this issue very carefully. It is my understanding that the law will return some buildings, I don't know how many, that were not churches -- but actually some properties to the Greek Catholic Church, which will represent some modicum of progress.

Poland's work in the communal property area is also worth special mention.
In the 1990s Poland passed and successfully implemented separate laws dealing with property restitution for the major religious communities represented in that country. Government of Poland has publicly stated that it intends to introduce new legislation providing all religious communities additional time to apply for properties. This offer will be of considerable benefit to Poland's religious communities.

Private property presents a more diversified picture. Poland does not yet have a law governing private property restitution, although in some cases claimants have been able to regain property through the courts. Poland attempted to enact private property restitution legislation on several occasions, most recently in early 2001, but the subject arose in
politically controversial manner, and the Polish president vetoed the law.

The government has now publicly announced that it intends to introduce new legislation in early 2003. We have been assured that the legislation will not contain citizenship or residence requirements.

Romania enacted private property legislation in February 2001. At our
suggestion, the original application deadline of August 2001 was extended to February of this year.
The adjudication process is now well under way, and we have urged Romania to implement this law in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. And I personally, when I was in Bucharest, recently noted that it is essential that there be implementation -- full and fair implementation of the law, not just a law itself.

The country-by-country summary submitted to you today includes a great deal more detail about the property situation in Eastern and Central Europe. Situation varies considerably from country to country, and I do not believe that trying to deal with the detail here would be particularly enlightening. I know that many of you have been engaged on this issue for many years and am more than happy to entertain questions from you. I will be pleased to answer them to the very best of my ability as sincerely and honestly as I can. Thank you.

SMITH: Sir, thank you very much for your overview and again for your extraordinarily good work that you do.

We have been joined by Ms. Clinton, a fellow commissioner from the Senate side.

Any opening statements, Ms. Clinton?

CLINTON: I want to thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling this
important hearing and I really appreciate the continuing emphasis on this issue. We have been (OFF-MIKE) update on the efforts that are under way in the work we are attempting to achieve.

And I would just emphasize that President Kwasniewski will be here this week, and I understand there is a commitment from the Polish government to introduce such legislation at the beginning of next year. Obviously I, along with others, would wish that would be expedited and introduced sooner than that. But certainly I hope that the president will, in his meetings, stress our very strong interest in this and our hope that it will be resolved expeditiously.

And I appreciate very much your holding this and bringing us up to date on these important matters.

SMITH: Thank you very much, Mrs. Clinton.

Let me, in follow-up to that, and I know on both sides of the aisle and both
sides of the Capitol there is a very strong sense that Poland has let all of us down, and most importantly let down those whose properties and goods have been confiscated, both through the Nazis and by way of the communists.

I wonder if you can tell us, because before the president went to Poland
last year, several of us wrote the president in June of 2001. We wrote again on July 15, 2002. Obviously the president and the administration is very well aware that this is a very, very serious sore, not only between the Polish government and those that continue to have this injustice visited upon them, but it also hurts our relationship, because it's like a sore that festers. It does carry over to our view of Poland and its government.

I wonder if you can tell us exactly what the administration is doing right now.

I mean, we have testimony from Mr. Evron, the president of the Holocaust
Restitution Committee, and he notes with justifiable cynicism, and I quote, "The Polish effort to provide property restitution has so far failed. Everybody knows that. Every single year however brings with it news reports that Poland is preparing comprehensive legislation to deal with the property restitution issue. However, no legislation has been passed to date." And then he
goes on, you know, next year, next year, next year. It never seems to materialize.

I wonder if you could tell us why this year might be different. Will the president make it a very significant part of his dialogue with the president, and what can we do in Congress to try and help you in those efforts?

BELL: Well, let me just cut right to the quick. It's definitely right there in the briefing book to be raised. So I want to provide you reassurance on that subject for the meeting tomorrow.

What we are working with is the commitment of the Polish government, as among other things, the prime minister has annunciated it.

So you have Prime Minister Miller publicly stating that in 2003 they will introduce this legislation. But we are not just sitting back and saying, "Oh, that's nice." We take that as, you know resolution of the issue.

We are continually, both in Warsaw and here, in touch with our Polish friends on this subject. And the Polish embassy and I discussed the matter just about three weeks ago, and went through in some detail what kinds of private property concerns there are here, and the very strong, strong interests of the Congress and the American people in these issues.

So I think, you know, what you can do, along with us, is keep the issue four square right there. And what we had is that at head of government committing publicly to it, and we have to, within the context of the alliance and our bilateral relationship, note our continued strong interests. And we do so, and you do so.

SMITH: I thank you and we will work together on that and hopefully this year might be different.

One issue on Romania, which you referenced in your testimony, I met with President Illiescu, as did you and some of the others when he was in the first time, then Constantinescu when he was in, and now again with President Illiescu.

We know that it's always a sticky point, those churches and buildings that you mentioned are going back to the Greek Catholic Church. Do you have any real sense that things may change here? This was such a high priority for the government in the negative that it was a sticky point when the pope was going to visit Bucharest. Why, especially since it is seemingly excluded from the legislation that's awaiting signature, do we have any realistic hope now that this church restoration might happen?

BELL: Well, one thing that I can tell you I understand is that the issue is not uniformly addressed throughout the country. Now while we all object to the lack of uniformity, in this particular incidence, if I understand correctly, there may be some progress that is taking place locally in the area of Timisoara (ph), where the clergy of the two churches are managing to cooperate on this issue.

But we return always, in our representations and Ambassador Guest does this very frequently, to the real and, you know, material necessity of having this resolved, having it resolved in a manner that involves the Romanian government's active participation, not leaving it simply to the two churches to work out.
It is in the end, though it was a communist government that took it, a government action which initially lies behind this. And we, I personally, among others, have been reminded the Romanian government that because of that it would be very difficult for the outside world to understand that the Romanian government did not take an active role in trying to bring resolution. I talked with officials of the church when I was there. I talked with the state secretaries working on restitution issues. I talked at a high level in the foreign ministry, and I and my colleagues have uniformly pressed this issue, simply because we all know that it matters and it's not going to go away.

History may have changed in some measure, the actual residence and, sort of, membership in the various communities. To my understanding, the Uniate Church has made clear that they are not asking for the return of literally every church that they previously possessed, and have indeed narrowed down quite considerably the overall field of what they are asking for. And we very much think that something needs to be done about that. And we very much represent that need.

SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Bell.

Commissioner Pitts?

PITTS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In your testimony regarding the Greek Catholic Church in Romania, you say. "Romanian officials recently assured me that the communal property law now under consideration would treat this property fairly."

BELL: Right, and that's what they say, so you know.

PITTS: That's a surprising assertion giving the Romanian president, Illiescu's, statement just last month that the state can not interfere in restituting churches to the Catholic Church. Can you elaborate? Can you tell us a little bit more about your discussions with those officials?

BELL: Well I think it's part of what I just went into with the chairman.
You know, what they said to me was that the law will cover, and they didn't specify exactly what, some aspect of this. My understanding preliminarily is that it's likely to deal with buildings; that would be things like schools and office buildings, but not the actual places of worship.

Now if the Uniate Church gets any advantage out of this, my assumption is it would be from the perspective of having saleable or rentable properties which would bring them income, and/or properties which could be adapted for other uses.

To parse their words and what they meant by saying that it would be treated fairly I think is a matter for monitoring and for us to see how the law actually is worded and how it is applied.

PITTS: The commission recently received information that the Romanian government continues to treat property claimants differently according to their citizenship status; Romanian citizens are treated more favorably than dual citizens or non-Romanian citizens. I think they are considered least favorably. During your recent meetings in Romania, did you express our government's opposition to this?

BELL: We have always stressed such things as the need to provide adequate notification outside Romania, which, you know, would be a discriminatory thing -- if you invoke a law and you only talk about it at home and you don't tell the diaspora abroad that you haven't achieved much.

So our government stressed to the Romanian government the need, when Law 10 was passed, to have an adequate notification program outside Romania.

And in Romania, as everywhere else, we strongly represent the principal that no restitution program is adequate which discriminates in any way according to citizenship.

PITTS: In six separate cases, the European Court of Human Rights held that Romanian government actions violated the right to property and the right to fair trial protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. And the commission has been told that there are an estimated 1,300 property restitution cases similar to those heard by European court in which final and irrevocable judgments in favor of property claimants who were quashed by the Romanian supreme court.

Despite the clear and consistent message delivered by the European court, the Romanian government has not yet indicated that it intends to offer redress for other similarly wronged individuals.

Should not the Romanian government offer redress to the property claimants affected rather than continuing to make each individual claimant pursue their cases all the way to the European court? Or what is the U.S. government doing to encourage them to do right by the claimants?

BELL: Well, let's just review for a minute what we know of this, and correct me if your information is different from mine.

The court noted that the applicants had been deprived of their property for more than 50 years, and that's in the Vasiliu and Hodos cases, and more than five years in the Surpaceanu case. In those circumstances, even supposing that the deprivation of possessions could be shown to have served some public interest, the court considered that a fair balance between the requirements of the general interest of the community and the individual's fundamental rights had been upset. So that is, sort of, the nature of the finding.

There is no new Romanian legislation, or dramatic change as a result of these cases. The cases demonstrated to the Romanian government, I think effectively, that their actions are being watched internationally. That's the advantage that has come from what the court did and decided.

Building on that we consistently, our embassy and we in Washington, stress that, "You have to have a fair non-discriminatory law, and you have to have the implementation that is fair and non-discriminatory, and that that court case has strengthened that position."

Now you could go on from there, you've got into what we say in our dialogue with Romania and other countries about how you have the credentials for participation in the Euro-Atlantic mainstream and whatever institution you are talking about.

And you know, restitution, in addition to being a moral obligation, in addition to touching on human rights and treatment of minorities, is a very practical matter too. Because if you don't have clear land title and restitution that meets the standards of the international community, you are not going to attract investment and you will not be able to generate the economic climate that you need, which in the case of that country is, of course, very, very important.

And we do not leave those arguments by the side. We clearly make them.

PITTS: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SMITH: Thank you very much.

Commissioner Cardin?

CARDIN: Thank you.

First, Mr. Bell, let me thank you very much for your testimony and for your commitment to this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that the statement of Mr. Ackerman be made part of our record concerning problems in Poland.

SMITH: Without objection, so ordered.

CARDIN: Mr. Bell, your statement, the 12 points that you listed in your written statement that you went over in your presentation here today as to the standards that should be included in a property restitution statute, has the United States attempted to articulate this in Europe to get broader consensus among the European states that this is what we would onsider to be a reasonable effort to deal with property restitution?

BELL: May I ask what you mean, all of Europe, or do you mean in the countries we are concentrating on today?

CARDIN: Well, obviously we are concentrating in the Central and Eastern Europe, but it seems to me that the nations that are involved are trying to get greater acceptance within broader European community. And to the extent that we have our traditional allies in Europe supporting our position on what a property restitution statute should be, it makes it easier for us to deal with the countries that are involved.

BELL: Well, there are two pieces of that that I can emphasize to you.

One is the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and of the European Union, while separate processes, are obviously happening on largely the same ground, and they involve many of the same considerations. The European Union's approach, as it is described to us, comes at these issues from the perspective that I was just describing a minute ago, of economics and of the need to have adequate laws and adequate legal protection programs.

So we, in our very frequent discussions with our current allies of these issues, yes, communicate our views of how these laws should look. And I like to think that informs the EU sides approach to these issues also.

But when it comes to specific...

CARDIN: I'd like to just, if I might, take some exception to that. I think you need to be more aggressive if we're going to be able to -- there isn't a single nation -- or correct me if I am wrong. Is there any nation that we are targeting for property restitution statues that have adopted a statute and implemented a statute that carries out these 12 principals?

BELL: I just wanted to say, just to complete what I was saying, if you wanted me to pick the country that's probably gone the furthest and where there are the fewest outstanding cases and objections and has the laws, that is probably Estonia. But I'm not sure that you could take Estonia's laws and say, "This is the answer to Romania."

You know, so I just conceptually, there is a problem with having a model statute, because very frequently the history is so different.

CARDIN: I appreciate that, but the principles are the same. And you might need to use a different type of a process to achieve the principles. But it seems to me the principles are pretty well established, as you have laid them out here. I must tell you, this is the first time I have seen them in this format.

BELL: I'm not sure you can translate those principles easily into one one-size-fits-all model statute.

What I wanted to say is, when you get then to specific aspects of restitution, we get more specific in what we say with all of the countries. An example being art restitution, where after the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust Assets, we began to put together international standards and principles, the Washington principles on art restitution.
And when you get to that degree of specificity, then you can tell people what a law ought to look like, and in addition, what the other implementation instruments ought to look like; what web sites ought to look like, what the role of museums and museum directors ought to be.

In short, there is a, sort of, descending hierarchy down into the details, and it's probably easier to talk about statutes which have more universal applicability when you get to the specific species of restitution. I am willing to have an omnibus restitution act that incorporates all those principles and fits every country.

CARDIN: What I am suggesting is that you proceed on two tracks: continue the strong bilateral efforts to get the right statutes in each of the states that we're involved with, but also work on a broader view within Europe that there's an expectation that these principles are going to be met for these nations coming into the mainstream of Europe.

And I guess I would like to see us be moving in both of those directions. I don't want you to slow down on the bilaterals, because that's where we are probably going to make most of the specific progress on the specific cases, but I do think we have to raise the general expectation in Europe generally.

BELL: I think that's an excellent point.

Let me just tell you another aspect of what is happening though. Because of my own and my colleagues' travels and formal raisings of these issues, because of the, sort of, we call the mid-term reviews that we've been having with aspirant states here in Washington, there is a communication from one government to the other of what it is that we and the European Union and others are saying.

So people -- the message is coming more than merely bilaterally. It is coming multilaterally to all of these governments. And I think that has been a salutary aspect of this era. I said in my opening remarks that we were at a pivotal point where we have some unusual opportunities, and it is that opportunity to have the message come from more than one quarter.

But your point is well taken.

CARDIN: Thank you. Let me just raise one issue that came up at our meeting in Berlin, and I'd be remiss if I didn't bring it up. There is a concern about, in Germany, that after unification, there was a commitment not to go make property claims for properties that were confiscated by the communists from 1945 to 1949. That seemed to be an obstacle to proper property restitution in the former East Germany.

I don't know whether this has been an area that you have been pursuing or not, but I can tell you it was a major issue brought up at our anti-Semitism meetings in Berlin.

BELL: I am aware of the issue. I have not, so far, personally engaged the German government on it, but I will be talking to them about it all.

CARDIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SMITH: Thank you.

Commissioner Clinton?

CLINTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is that an issue that we have -- thank
you Joe -- that we have -- see, our microphones in the Senate just work automatically, so I've got to be reminded to turn on the microphone. Thank you very much my colleague from New York.

This is an issue that we have been very concerned about for a number of years. And as I know that we're all aware that the December of 2000 report by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets really did a great deal to help us establish these principles with respect to artwork and hidden bank deposits and the like. But I think that the underlying message of the commission's efforts and recommendations was that there is so much
more to be done. And I appreciate greatly your report to us.

I agree with my colleague, Mr. Cardin, that it is such a long, slow struggle, you know, country by country, administration by administration. You know, when regimes change, we really almost go back to square one. And it's just so frustrating. And it must be extremely painful for a lot of the people who have such a personal interest in the resolution of these outstanding disputes.

You know, in December of 2001, I introduced S. 1876, the Holocaust Victims' Assets Restitution Policy and Remembrance Act, which would establish a national foundation here in our country for the study of Holocaust assets. This would be an independent government entity that would be dedicated to completing research and disseminating information on Holocaust-era assets, as well as developing policiesof promoting solutions to outstanding and future restitution issues.

The reason I thought that was so important is because even if we were to have the greatest possible results in working with the existing governments, which unfortunately, I don't foresee happening in the short term -- I think we're still in for quite a long and frustrating efforts with many of them -- we need to have, in our government, one place where we would coordinate the efforts of the federal government, state governments, private sector, individuals here and abroad, that would help people and their descendants to identify and reclaim these assets over time.

And it would also give us some leverage that is needed to have access to the archives that exist. Because trying to track this information is time consuming, it's expensive, and sometimes it just keeps running into dead ends without some push behind the individual claimants.

And I think that can only come from our government.

I am pleased that Congressman Brad Sherman has introduced this legislation in the House.

I would certainly invite my members here on the commission to take a look at it.

Because I think in the absence of some concerted commitment on the part of our government to really help claimants over time, then even where we're successful, it may not result in the kind of outcomes that justice demands.