RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 2, No. 233, 4 December 1998

RUSSIA WANTS NEW CFE BEFORE NATO EXPANSION... Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov said on 3 December that an updated
version of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE)
Treaty must be ratified before NATO admits any former
Warsaw Pact countries. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech
Republic are scheduled to join NATO in April. JAC

DZURINDA SAYS BENES DECREES NOT TO BE REVOKED. Slovak
Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda has dismissed opposition
fears that ethnic Hungarians in the coalition government
want to revoke the Benes decrees, CTK reported. Dzurinda
said the issue "cannot be reopened because it was deeply
anchored in our coalition agreements." The premier was
responding to opposition deputies who claim that the
Hungarian Coalition Party wants to redistribute land in
southern Slovakia that was confiscated after World War
II from Hungarians who were expelled under the Benes
decrees. Jan Cuper of the Movement for a Democratic
Slovakia, said "this is one of the ways in which
land?will get into hands of people primarily of
Hungarian nationality." PB

HUNGARY WANTS MORE TIME BEFORE DECIDING ON DAM. The
daily "Magyar Hirlap" reports that the Hungarian
government will ask the International Court of Justice
in The Hague for another six months to make a decision
on the controversial Gabcikovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric
project. Slovakia sent the dispute back to The Hague
after failing to agree with Budapest on an
interpretation of the court's first decision, which was
taken in September 1997. The case was originally brought
to the court in 1994, five years after Hungary withdrew
from the project. PB

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RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 2, No. 234, 7 December 1998

GERMAN DEFENSE MINISTER SEES EARLY NATO ACCESSION.
Rudolf Scharping said in Warsaw on 5 December that
Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary may officially
join NATO before the planned date in April, dpa
reported. Scharping said the early admission of the
three would allow them to participate in formulating
NATO strategy. Scharping also met with Defense Minister
Janusz Onyszkiewicz and Foreign Minister Bronislaw
Geremek during his two-day visit. In other news, a man
found frozen to death in western Poland on 6 December
was the 90th victim of the cold snap in that country. PB

HUNGARIAN EXTREME RIGHT PARTY RE-ELECTS LEADER. The
national congress of the far-right Hungarian Justice and
Life Party (MIEP) has re-elected Istvan Csurka as the
party's chairman, Hungarian media reported on 7
December. At the same time, Lukacs Szabo, who earlier
had questioned the party's finances, was expelled from
the MIEP, which called on him to return his
parliamentary seat to the party. Szabo said his
expulsion will leave the party one seat short of the
minimum needed to form a parliamentary group, commenting
that "Csurka has not only smashed the parliamentary
group but also the party." MSZ

ROMANIAN COALITION PARTIES DIFFER OVER REFORM. Prime
Minister Radu Vasile and members of his government asked
President Emil Constantinescu on 5 December to use his
influence over parliamentary deputies from the ruling
coalition to ensure the passage of a far-reaching reform
program approved by the cabinet two days earlier. The
program calls for the immediate closure of 49 loss-
making enterprises. The leadership of the National
Peasant Party Christian Democratic said on 3 December
that the reform must be linked to property restitution.
The Democratic Party, the Liberal Party, and the
Hungarian Democratic Coalition of Romania said linking
the two issues will again lead to disputes at a time
when the reform measure package is urgently needed. MS

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               Copyright (c) 1998 RFE/RL, Inc.
                     All rights reserved.
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