They agreed the Institute should serve as a voluntary forum for information exchange and experience sharing for partners dealing with the Holocaust both on governmental and non-governmental and expert levels, thus facilitating formulation of guidelines and identification of best practices for restitutions of property and art confiscated by the Nazis, as well as for provision of social welfare for Holocaust survivors and other victims of Nazism, taking into consideration their advanced age.

They also agreed that promotion of commemoration of Holocaust and other Nazi crimes as well as Holocaust education and research of Holocaust and related topics belong to the scope of activities of the Institute.

Mr. Kohout and Mr. Eizenstat likewise discussed the possibilities and ways of involvement of other countries and the EU in the project of the Institute.

As one of its first outputs the Institute ensures the ongoing intergovernmental negotiations on restitution guidelines (concerning restitutions of private and communal immovable property confiscated by the Nazis), which is to be finalized in June 2010.

At the end of this round of negotiations on restitution guidelines, the Chairman of the Administrative Board of the Institute, Mr. Tomáš Kosta, and the Institute´s Director, Mr. Lukáš Přibyl, were introduced to the press.

European Shoah Legacy Institute was founded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic as a follow up to the Terezin Declaration endorsed at the International Holocaust Era Assets Conference. The conference was organized as the last event of the Czech Presidency of the European Council in June 2009.

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