OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 58, 22 March 1996

HUNGARY TO FURTHER REDUCE STATE DEBT. Hungary will repay $4.5 billion in
foreign debt this year--before its deadline--thus bringing the state
debt to around $9 billion by end 1996, the lowest in more than a decade,
National Bank (MNB) Governor Gyorgy Suranyi said, Napi Gazdasag reported
on 22 March. Rather than buying back state bonds, the MNB will amortize
loans accompanied by early repayment clauses, such as those from
international financial institutions. According to Suranyi, it is the
country's high, $11 billion foreign currency reserves that allow for the
early repayment. Also, Suranyi said he is considering cutting the
monthly forint devaluation rate, which now stands at 1.2%. -- Zsofia
Szilagyi

[As of 12:00 CET]

Compiled by Chrystyna Lapychak


Friday, 22 March 1996 Volume 1, Issue 314

> --------------------------------------------------
CZECHS NATO-SCEPTICAL AS LEADERS COURT CHRISTOPHER
> --------------------------------------------------
Czech leaders may have proclaimed their enthusiasm for NATO
membership to U.S. Secretary of State of Warren Christopher this
week, but opinion polls show that their voters are far more
sceptical.  Foreign Minister Josef Zieleniec took full
advantange of a Christopher visit to Prague on Wednesday to
advertise Czech determination to join the Western alliance as
soon as possible.  But Zieleniec and some of his counterparts
from the former East Bloc who met Christopher must also win over
their own populations, particularly to the idea that joining
NATO could mean accepting nuclear weapons.  An opinion survey
commissioned by the European Commission shows that only a third
of Czechs would vote "yes" in an a referendum on entering NATO.
Some of their neighbours in post-communist central Europe,
notably the Hungarians, Slovaks and Bulgarians, are equally
sceptical.


> ----------------------------------------
SLOVAKIA WILL RATIFY TREATY WITH HUNGARY
> ----------------------------------------
Slovak economics minister Jan Ducky fully expects the Slovak
parliament to ratify his country's basic treaty with Hungary.
The treaty is currently on Bratislava's parliamentary agenda.
Ducky was speaking after signing an agreement with Hungarian
Trade and Industry Minister Imre Dunai to set up the first
interministerial joint committee between the two countries to
promote trade, industrial, and tourism links.    U.S. Secretary
of State Warren Christopher hinted this week at Western
impatience that Bratislava had still not ratified the basic
treaty, which the two country's prime ministers, Vladimir Meciar
of Slovakia and Gyula Horn of Hungary, signed in Paris in March
1995.  Despite Budapest ratifiing the treaty last summer, which
aims to settle a series of long-running disputes, notably over
Slovakia's 600,000-strong ethnic Hungarian minority,  Bratislava
has been reticent. But, in an effort to push through
ratification, Meciar has bowed to a demand by his far-right
coalition partner the Slovak National Party for an amendment to
the penal law resurrecting communist anti-subversion legislation
in only mildly modified form. Bratislava has already received
two diplomatic warnings from the EU and one from the United
States following several years of political instability.
Without the treaty, Slovakia has no chance of achieving its aims
of joining the EU and the Western defence alliance


> -------------------------------------------------
FRENCH-OWNED HUNGARY FIRM PROTESTS NEW ISSUE VETO
> -------------------------------------------------
The majority French-owned Hungarian sugar-producing plant
Eridania Beghin-Say on Thursday accused the country's
privatisation agency APV Rt of blocking its attempts to invest
in three Hungarian plants.  The company issued a statement after
the agency vetoed a third attempt to raise capital in the
Szerencsi, Szolnoki and Matravideki factories, in which Eridania
Beghin-Say has a majority stake.  According to the company, the
Szerencsi, Szolnoki and especially the Matravideki factories
need the capital injection for modernisation and to cover
operating costs.  The privatisation agency has a 25 percent plus
one share stake in each of the three sugar factories.
Privatisation officials were not immediately available for
comment.


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date=3/21/96
type=correspondent report
number=2-194654
title=NATO / Eastern Europe (l only)
byline=Barry Wood
dateline=Prague
content=
voiced at:

Intro:  Foreign ministers from the 12 new Central and Eastern
European democracies who met in Prague with U-S secretary of
state Warren Christopher have returned home with generally
positive assessments of their talks by NATO expansion.  V-o-A's
Barry Wood reports from Prague.

Text:  For the Polish foreign minister, the Prague meeting was a
step forward in Poland's desire to join the western defense
alliance.  He said it should become clear by the end of this year
who will be the first to join, and when.

Czech officials are similarly upbeat about the meeting with Mr.
Christopher and his pledge  not  to keep aspiring NATO members in
the waiting room forever.  A Czech foreign ministry official says
he has  no  doubt that the Czech Republic will be in NATO by the
turn of the century.

The issue of NATO expansion is particularly important to the
three Baltic States, which feel vulnerable and isolated, their
independence as fragile as their countries are small.  The Baltic
ministers fears are exacerbated by the recent Russian Duma
resolution to reconstitute the Soviet Union.

Latvian foreign minister Valdis Birkavs says his country wants to
join NATO and the European Union while maintaining cordial,
productive relations with Russia.  The minister suggests that the
Czech Republic and Poland are likely to be the first
post-communist countries to join NATO.

But Mr. Birkavs says he worries about a new divide between east
and west and what will happen after the first phase of NATO
enlargement.

                       //  Birkavs act  //

         The best solution would be to avoid new lines, to
         instead, to make something like a zig zag. For example,
         to take Lithuania together with Poland into NATO.  And
         Latvia with the Czech Republic.  Make such a parallel
         approach.

                         //  End act  //

Mr. Birkavs says he first made this suggestion last year, but
that it has found little support.  The Latvian minister worries
that in order  not  to offend Russia, NATO will go very slow on
admitting the three Baltic States.

There is  no  doubt that the effort to meet the criteria for
membership in NATO and the European Union is a strong motivation
for policy reform in Eastern Europe.

Already there has been a positive response in Slovakia to Mr.
Christopher's insistence that Bratislava approve a friendship
treaty with neighboring Hungary.  Slovak officials say the
treaty, supported by the government of prime minister Vladimir
Meciar, is likely to be voted on in parliament next week.
(Signed)

neb/bdw/jwh/mmk

21-Mar-96 12:30 pm est (1730 utc)
nnnn

source: Voice of America