Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel has welcomed the choice of three respected European figures to decide whether his government is complying with fundamental democratic values

Date: 13/07/2000

"I am sure the report can have no other result than giving Austria a clean sheet on human rights," he said after a meeting with European Commission President Romano Prodi in Brussels yesterday (12 July). He suggested that the government would drop plans to hold a referendum on the sanctions imposed on Austria if the wise men found that the government was adhering to basic European values. Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, former Spanish Foreign Minister and European Commissioner Marcelino Oreja, and the head of a German scientific institute Jochen Frowein have been appointed by the European Court of Human Rights to sit on the panel.