RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
________________________________________________________
RFE/RL NEWSLINE  7 April 2000 
TOP HUNGARIAN COURT REJECTS BYKOV'S PLEA. The Hungarian
Supreme Court has rejected former Krasnoyarsk Aluminum head
Anatolii Bykov's application for refugee status, AP reported
on 6 April, quoting Bykov's lawyer. Hungary's justice
minister must now decide whether to grant Russia's request
for Bykov's extradition. Bykov is suspected of money
laundering and conspiracy to commit murder. He has been at
loggerheads with Krasnoyarsk Krai Governor Aleksandr Lebed,
who, Bykov claims, "persecuted" him (see "RFE/RL Newsline,"
26 January 2000). JC 
ESTONIA CATCHES UP WITH OTHER EU FRONT-RUNNERS. The European
Commission on 6 April provisionally closed another four
negotiating chapters with Estonia, meaning the country is now
even with others in the "Luxembourg group" (Czech Republic,
Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and Cyprus). Chapters on foreign
relations, fisheries, the Common Foreign and Security Policy,
and the commercial code were closed, while two chapters--on
regional policies and fiscal supervision--were opened. A
total of 12 of the 25 chapters that have been opened for
talks with Estonia have thus been provisionally closed. Chief
negotiator Alar Streimann told BNS that he hopes the
remaining chapters, which include agriculture and free
movement of labor, will be opened during the current
Portuguese presidency of the EU. MH 
HUNGARY'S EU ACCESSION TALKS REACH DELICATE STAGE. Endre
Juhasz, Hungary's ambassador to the EU, complained to
reporters in Brussels on 6 April that the EU "keeps
meticulously silent" about which economic data it aims to use
as a basis for assistance to Hungarian regions. He said he
expected a more detailed explanation at ongoing accession
talks. EU economic and financial commissioner Pedro Solbes
said after signing a joint EU-Hungarian report that the
Hungarian government's economic program is ambitious but "too
optimistic" as regards inflation. The Hungarian delegation
indicated that it has modified its target date for accession
from 1 January 2002 to 2003, Hungarian media reported. MSZ 
UN RAPPORTEUR RELEASES REPORT ON RACISM IN THREE COUNTRIES.
The UN's special rapporteur for contemporary racism, Maurice
Glele-Ahanhanzo, has released a report on racial
discrimination against Roma in the Czech Republic, Hungary,
and Romania, CTK reported on 6 April. Glele-Ahanhanzo cited
various cases of racial discrimination, legal discrepancies,
and incidents of racially motivated violence and made various
recommendations for programs and legislation to improve the
situation. At the same time, he noted that in their efforts
to gain membership in the EU, the governments of all three
countries are making efforts to implement reforms to help
their Romany minorities. VG
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
               Copyright (c) 1999 RFE/RL, Inc.
                     All rights reserved.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
________________________________________________________
RFE/RL NEWSLINE  6 April 2000 
HUNGARY ENDORSES CHECHEN WAR. "Chechnya is part of Russia and
all states have the right to take whatever action is
necessary against all forms of terrorism," Hungarian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Gabor Horvath told Hungarian media on 5
April. However, the excessive use of military force against
the civilian population is not desirable, he noted. In other
news, a recently released 1999 NATO report on the Hungarian
army warns that a significant part of the army's technology
is obsolete, "Nepszabadsag" reported on 6 April. According to
the report, if Hungarian units are unable to meet the
alliance's expectations, they may harm NATO's credibility.
MSZ 
POLAND RECEIVES MIXED SIGNALS OVER EU ENTRY 
By Breffni O'Rourke 
By virtue of its spectacular progress in economic reform
and its enthusiastic desire to join Western structures,
Poland has always been regarded as a leading candidate for
quick entry into the EU.
Already a member of the NATO alliance, Poland has set
its own target date of January 2003 for accession to the EU.
It is one of five Central and East European "front-runners"
that have been negotiating with Brussels for the past two
years. (The others are Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
and Slovenia.)
For its part, the EU's Executive Commission has always
declined to set an entry date for any of the candidates,
although it maintained a generally encouraging tone. But
there have recently been confusing signals about the position
of Poland.
Guenter Verheugen, the EU's commissioner for
enlargement, said in an interview with "Uniting Europe" last
week that Poland is not "predetermined" to be in the first
wave of accession. Theoretically seen, he said, "Poland could
even be the last of all to join."
In diplomatic circles where words are weighed, such a
formulation is striking. It follows Verheugen's comments the
month before in Warsaw when he said Poland could miss the
2003 deadline, as it had fallen behind in developing its
legislative program. Also in Warsaw, Ricardo Levi, the
spokesman for Commission President Romano Prodi, mused aloud
about the possibility of a first-wave entry without Poland.
Verheugen has since made an effort to backtrack, in an
evident attempt to smooth ruffled feathers. In an interview
with the "Financial Times" on 4 April, he said it is his
personal objective to ensure that Poland is among the first
new members. He said there is no change in the commission's
strategy and no one need be nervous. The enlargement process
is "irreversible," he commented.
So why the sudden swing in tone? Poland's Ambassador to
the EU Jan Truszczynski told RFE/RL that there is "no reason
to believe that Poland has ceased to be one of the leaders in
the league of candidates." He admitted that there are delays
of "several months," in legislation in some important areas,
including telecommunications but stressed that work is now
being speeded up.
The ambassador, like other Polish officials, says it is
"unthinkable" that Poland should be left out of the first
wave. So what has caused EU officials to think the
unthinkable? The most likely answer is agriculture. EU member
states have not yet been able to decide how--or even whether-
-the terms of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) can
be extended to Eastern candidates.
The CAP is an extremely expensive instrument of
financial support for EU farmers. It consumes half the entire
EU budget and is deeply unpopular in international trade
circles, where it is seen as posing unfair trade competition. 
Extending the system to Poland's 2 million farms, most
of them smallholdings worked at subsistence level, would
probably bring the CAP to the point of collapse. Moreover,
present member states would revolt at having to pay so much
for Poland.
Verheugen foreshadowed the difficulties when he said
last month that member states will not be able to formulate a
full, common negotiating position on agriculture until at
least the end of this year, despite the fact that
negotiations with Poland and the other front runners are set
to open this June.
Verheugen has moved to put the ball in Warsaw's court,
by saying the Polish government will have to come up with a
clear concept on restructuring its agriculture. But as
Ambassador Truszczynski says, the EU, too, must do its part.
He says Brussels is reluctant to get down to the hard
talking: "They have to start proposing the solutions they
have been signaling for quite some time already. We have to
start discussing substance, this substance has not yet been
the subject of discussion, the member states preferring until
now to ask additional questions, to demand additional
explanations from all the candidates."
One possible solution in Poland's case would be to
consider most of the farms not to be farms at all in terms of
the CAP. Fewer than half a million farms in Poland are
considered commercially viable. These could be subsidized
under the CAP, while the other 1.5 million properties, which
are often not much more than family plots, could be helped
under other EU funds, for instance for social development in
rural areas.
What now appears clear, for Poland and for the other
candidates, is that the agriculture issue is one with a
potential to upset previous perceptions about who is leading
in the EU accession stakes. 
The author is an RFE/RL senior correspondent based in Prague.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
               Copyright (c) 1999 RFE/RL, Inc.
                     All rights reserved.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx