Two key leaders of Chancellor Ludwig Erhard’s Christian Democratic Union expressed the hope today that the mediation committee of West Germany’s Parliament would settle the dispute over expansion of a special hardship fund for victims of Nazisto when the committee meets tomorrow.
The Bundestag, the lower house, appreved by a large majority an amendment to the indenmification law to enlarge from 700,000,000 marks ($175,000,000) to 1,200,000,000 marks ($300,000,000) a fund to compensate victims who were unable to file claims by an October 1953 deadline because they were then in Iron Curtain courtries.
However, when the bill came before the bundesrat, the upper chamber, that body jected the projected increase by a large majority. The dispute was transmitted to the mediation committee which has the task of resolving such conflicts.
Dr. Rainer Barael, leader of the Parliamentary CDU faction, the largest party in the Bundestag, and Prof. Frana Boehm, the CDU restitution expert, told the Jewish Tele graphic Agency that if the mediation committee lailed to reach agreement, the Bundetag would be recalled from its current summer vacation for a special session on July 29.
If the special session is unable to find a solution, the law will be regarded as wreeked and a new measure will have to be formulated at the rest session of the new Bundestag to be elected on September 19, they said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
