The founding signatories included: The Declaration was subsequently also signed by around 50 members of the European Parliament and other politicians from around the world,[7] including Els de Groen, Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis, György Schöpflin, Gisela Kallenbach, Eugenijus Gentvilas, Michael Gahler, Zuzana Roithová, Inese Vaidere, Hans-Josef Fell, Nickolay Mladenov, József Szájer, Peter Stastny, Ari Vatanen, Wojciech Roszkowski, László Tőkés, Charlotte Cederschiöld, László Surján, and Milan Zver.

[8] The Declaration was also signed by Lee Edwards (Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation), Asparoukh Panov (Vice-President of the Liberal International), poet and civil rights activist Natalya Gorbanevskaya, philosopher André Glucksmann, and former Yugoslav dissident Ljubo Sirc.

"[11] On 18 September 2008, The Greens–European Free Alliance hosted a public hearing in the European Parliament on "Totalitarian Regimes and the opening of the secret files archives in Central and Eastern Europe," based on the Prague Declaration, and organised by MEPs Milan Horáček and Gisela Kallenbach.

The official program stated that: "The Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism should be the common basis for the research on and evaluation of communist regimes in all countries in East-Europe.

"[18] On 28 April 2009, the governments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were thanked by the President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, for their efforts to better inform western Europe on the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union.

[19] On 16 June 2009, the EU General Affairs Council adopted conclusions stating that, "in order to strengthen European awareness of crimes committed by totalitarian regimes, the memory of Europe's troubled past must be preserved, as reconciliation would be difficult without remembrance.

"[27] In December 2010, the foreign ministers of six EU member states[fn 1] called upon the European Commission to make "the approval, denial or belittling of communist crimes" an EU-wide criminal offence.

[28] "Alongside the prosecution and punishment of criminals, the denial of every international crime should be treated according to the same standards, to prevent favourable conditions for the rehabilitation and rebirth of totalitarian ideologies," the foreign ministers wrote in a letter to justice commissioner Viviane Reding.

[37] The purpose of the hearing was "to focus on the importance to provide objective and comprehensive information about the totalitarian past, as public discourse can lead to a better, deeper understanding of our shared history and a greater feeling of unity.

"[39] In May 2011, the Czech Senate almost unanimously demanded that the European Commission "should in the future actively seek to create conditions for the punishment of crimes based on class and political hatred in the whole EU.

Justice Minister Krzysztof Kwiatkowski said that the "Warsaw Declaration is a unanimous agreement of all EU member states that we have to do everything we can to prevent any totalitarian regime from reviving in all the countries making up one big European family.

[50] In February 2012, the sixth Mene Tekel international culture festival against totalitarianism, evil and violence took place in Prague, supported by the Platform of European Memory and Conscience.

"[52][53] Following the conference, the Platform of European Memory and Conscience founded an international legal expert group to "work on a road map for establishing a supranational institution of justice" devoted to the "crimes committed by the Communist dictatorships.

The resolution stated that "the Nazi and communist regimes carried out mass murders, genocide and deportations and caused a loss of life and freedom in the 20th century on a scale unseen in human history."

The resolution stressed that there is "an urgent need to raise awareness, carry out moral assessments and conduct legal inquiries into the crimes of Stalinism and other dictatorships", called on "Russian society to come to terms with its tragic past" and highlighted the importance of Black Ribbon Day.

"[59] Notably, Russia protested against the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's support for the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism; its delegation tried but failed to have the resolution withdrawn.

"[65] In response the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Audronius Ažubalis, called the Seventy Years Declaration "deplorable" and "pathetic," and said it echoed "the Kremlin's ideologues" and contradicted the position of the EU.

"[68] The Communist Party of Britain opined that the Prague Declaration "is a rehash of the persistent attempts by reactionary historians to equate Soviet Communism and Hitlerite Fascism, echoing the old slanders of British authors George Orwell and Robert Conquest.

"[69] In June 2008, Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre accused signatories Václav Havel and Vytautas Landsbergis of having "anti-Semitic, racist and Holocaust distortionist motives.

"[75] Šarūnas Liekis, a Yiddish studies professor from Vilnius, criticised the actions of both sides of the debate, stating that "we are squeezed between two Talibans" and suggesting that "the same obstinacy that plagues Lithuania's relations with Poland lies behind politicians' refusal to reverse their mistakes on Jewish issues.