Austrian MEPs set aside their party differences in condemning the controversial annual commemoration of the Bleiburg massacre, in a news conference on Monday.

Three MEPs from Austria – Josef Weidenholzer of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPO), Othmar Karas from the ruling Austrian People’s Party (OVP), and Angelika Mlinar from the liberal NEOS party – held a news conference on Monday in Vienna to raise awareness over what they said is the concerning use of the commemoration as a platform for right-wing extremists.

“Together, and above any party interests, we say no! No to the celebration of Croatian fascist, the Ustashas, on Austrian soil. This is harmful to the reputation of Austria, and of Europe,” Weidenholzer tweeted on Monday.

The event, held every May at Bleiburg, a small town in southern Austria close to the Slovenian border, regularly attracts thousands of right-wing Croatians as well as prominent members of the Croatian Catholic clergy and some mainstream Croatian politicians who gather at the site to commemorate the mass killings of civilians and soldiers loyal to the World War II fascist Ustashe regime committed by the communist Partisans in the closing days of the war in 1945.

Although the exact number of people killed is still hotly debated, the annual event has over the years become popular with Croatian far-right and right-wing groups, who flock to the place where so-called death marches towards present-day Slovenia started in 1945, following the capture of thousands of soldiers and civilians.

Prior to the fall of communism in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s the commemoration was a low-key event, but has since grown and gained mainstream support, getting official support of the Croatian Parliament, which sponsors the event with 500,000 kuna (€67,500).

The Bleiburg event traditionally causes controversy in Croatia itself as it draws crowds of Croatian far-right extremists often seen displaying World War II-era Ustasha insignia and iconography.

The three Austrian MEPs said on Monday they did not oppose the existence of the event itself, but are against it being used as a platform for far-right extremists, calling for authorities to use tighter controls over the kind of symbols used as the event.

They said that although Ustasha symbols are banned in Croatia, they are legal in Austria, and used the occasion to call for a EU-level ban on all fascist symbols in public.

This year, the organisers have banned all controversial symbols, flags, and banners from the event.

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