OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 238, 11 December 1996

1997 NATO SUMMIT TO ISSUE MEMBERSHIP INVITATIONS. NATO foreign ministers
agreed on 10 December that an alliance summit meeting on 7-8 July in
Madrid will decide which of the 11 Eastern European applicants will be
invited to accession negotiations, international agencies reported. NATO
Secretary-General Javier Solana refused to reveal which countries would
be selected, saying only that "one or more" would receive invitations.
Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are still believed to be the
leading candidates, although Slovenia, Romania, and Slovakia are still
under consideration. -- Scott Parrish

HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT RATIFIES BASIC TREATY WITH ROMANIA. The Hungarian
parliament on 10 December ratified the bilateral treaty with Romania,
aimed at normalizing bilateral relations between the two countries,
Hungarian media reported. The treaty was signed in September and
ratified by the Romanian parliament in October, ahead of the
parliamentary elections. The vote in Hungary was 249 for the treaty, 53
against with 12 abstentions. Although opposition parties have criticized
the treaty, saying it does not guarantee sufficient minority rights,
ratification was never in doubt because the ruling coalition has a 72%
majority in the parliament. -- Zsofia Szilagyi

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES APPROVE ROMANIAN CABINET NOMINEES. Joint
committees of the Parliament's two chambers on 10 December approved all
nominees for ministers in Victor Ciorbea's cabinet, Jurnalul National
reported. The longest hearing was held for the foreign minister nominee,
Adrian Severin, who had been contested even from within the governing
coalition long before his official nomination. Severin said Romania's
relations with the West must have priority over those with the East.
According to RFE/RL, Romanian nationalists criticized Severin for being
"too European." One of the two ethnic Hungarian ministers, Gyorgy Tokay
of the Office for National Minorities, received negative votes from the
two extremist parties represented in parliament, the Party of Romanian
National Unity and the Greater Romania Party. Both parties oppose
Hungarian presence in the new government. The parliament is expected to
vote today on the cabinet on the whole. -- Zsolt Mato


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Compiled by Sava Tatic