The delegates from the various European communities had come together to adopt the new statutes of the organisation founded in 1986 by CRIF’s then-president Théo Klein. These statutes in particular envisage an extension from two to four years of the duration of the mandates of the organisation’s officers, in particular the President, what’s more without any limitation. These new statutes, as is usual in such cases, needed to be adopted by a two thirds majority. But those who drafted them had added a special article at the end, which was not at all necessary for the correct functioning of the institution.
The article in question could be voted by a simple majority and allowed the team in place, elected on 26th June 2007 in Brussels for a duration of two years, to extend its mandate … by four years, that is to say 2011. For CRIF, this represented a “retroactive validation” of a change in the statutes, “something shocking per se and which leads to a democratic regress inasmuch as in 2009 the normal campaign, which should have involved several candidates, will not take place,” noted Richard Prasquier.
It is for these “legal and ethical” reasons that France, which represents Europe’s largest Jewish community, has decided to suspend its participation in the European Jewish Congress. France’s position has been followed by Austria and Portugal.
Richard Prasquier insisted on the fact that France was withdrawing from the EJC to denounce the “electoral manipulation” of the 10th of February and was not in any way positioning itself on the field of personal accusations.
CRIF’s delegation consisted of Yonathan Arfi; Pierre Besnainou; Nathalie Cohen-Beizerman ; Roger Cukierman ; Bernard Gahnassia ; Meyer Habib ; Francis Kalifat ; Haïm Musicant ; Richard Prasquier ; Gérard Unger ; Manek Weintraub.
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