OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 181, 18 September 1995

EUROPE'S OLDEST SUBWAY REOPENED IN HUNGARY. Following a multi-million
dollar facelift, Europe's oldest subway, built in 1896, was reopened in
Budapest on 15 September, international media reported. "Budapest must
develop her mass transport system to meet the challenges of the 21st
century if our city is to become a regional financial center," Mayor
Gabor Demszky said at the opening ceremony. The subway has been restored
in its original, turn-of-the-century style and is expected to become a
major tourist attraction. The six-month facelift cost over 3 billion
forint ($27 million) and was partly financed by the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development. -- Zsofia Szilagyi

PERRY PRAISES SLOVENIA. US Secretary of Defense William Perry, at the
start of his tour of Central Europe, said on 17 September in Ljubljana
that Slovenia is just as qualified as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and
Poland to join NATO, international media reported. "Of all of these
countries, I believe that Slovenia has made perhaps the greatest
progress in the transition to democracy, the transition to a market
economy and the smooth turnover of the military to civilian control," he
commented. Perry the previous day expressed "cautious optimism" that the
arms embargo against Slovenia will be lifted this year. -- Michael
Mihalka

ROMANIAN EXTREMIST LEADER TO RUN FOR PRESIDENCY. The National Council of
the extremist Greater Romania Party has nominated party chairman
Corneliu Vadim Tudor as its candidate for the 1996 presidential
elections, Radio Bucharest reported on 16 September. Tudor said that, if
elected, he would oppose alleged plans to turn Romania "into a colony of
occult forces worldwide." He also promised to become a second Vlad the
Impaler, the 15th-century Wallachian prince notorious for his cruelty.
Tudor the previous day had demanded the removal of head of the Romanian
Intelligence Service (SRI) Virgil Magureanu, whom he accused of having
established a "political police [force]." He also blamed the SRI for
allegedly allowing Hungarians "to buy up Transylvania through all kinds
of private companies." Tudor's attacks against the SRI come in the wake
of the recent publication of documents showing he was a Securitate
informer. -- Dan Ionescu

ROMANIA'S HUNGARIANS STAGE SCHOOL PROTEST. Some 8,000 pupils, teachers,
and parents on 15 September rallied in Sfantu Gheorghe, a Transylvanian
town where ethnic Hungarians are in an overwhelming majority, to protest
the education law adopted this summer. Romania's Hungarians see the
legislation as discriminating against ethnic minorities. Romanian media,
however, reported on 16 September that, despite calls by the Hungarian
Democratic Federation of Romania, there were no similar protests in
other Transylvanian towns. President Ion Iliescu, speaking in Oradea at
a ceremony marking the beginning of the new school year, appealed to
Romanian and Hungarian pupils and teachers to support his initiative for
a "historic reconciliation" between the two countries. Iliescu launched
the initiative at a meeting with political leaders on 14 September. --
Dan Ionescu

[As of 12:00 CET]

Compiled by Jan Cleave



Monday, 18 September 1995
Volume 2, Issue 180


BUSINESS NEWS
-------------

**HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT, COURT AT ODDS**
  The Hungarian government has slammed a Constitutional Court
  ruling striking down the finance ministry's austerity
  measures.  The ruling coalition said the ruling will force it
  to raise taxes.  Last Wednesday, Hungary's Constitutional
  Court ruled that several parts of the finance ministry's
  austerity program are unconstitutional.  Among them, a
  proposal specifying that the government only pay sick benefits
  to those too ill to work after 25 days rather than the current
  10 days.  The court also rejected a provision that would have
  forbidden families with assets or property from getting family
  welfare allowances.  The measures were part of a highly
  controversial austerity package announced by Finance Minister
  Lajos Bokros last March.  Late last week, the prime minister's
  office said in a statement released to all major newspapers
  saying it can only compensate for the loss of revenue that
  will result from the ruling by "increasing the tax burden on
  all".  The statement said that the government will try to
  distribute the extra tax burden fairly.  Details on the
  budgetary impact of the court's rulings aren't available yet.
  But the rejection of the provision on sickness benefits is
  expected to cost the government $111 million.  In June the
  Constitutional Court rejected other provisions in the package,
  but the ministry managed to find alternative savings and tax
  income. --David Fink


**MOL SHARES SHARED**
  Hungary's state-owned oil group MOL said it's going to split
  its shares one-for-10 before the company is floated on the
  Budapest Stock Exchange.  MOL officials told an extraordinary
  shareholders' meeting that the split is aimed at making the
  shares more tradeable when the company is listed on the
  bourse.  Outgoing MOL chief executive officer Gyorgy Szabo
  told the meeting the shares would probably be listed this
  December, but no final decision has been made.  The Hungarian
  state privatization agency now owns slightly more than 88
  percent of MOL.  It plans to place 25 to 30 percent of the
  company's shares with international institutional investors
  later this year. Two percent will be offered to domestic
  retail investors and five and a half percent to employees.



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Tuesday, 19 September 1995
Volume 2, Issue 181


REGIONAL NEWS
-------------

**SERBS FLEE, CROATS PURSUE**
  United States envoy Richard Holbrooke was in Zagreb yesterday
  continuing to try to negotiate a peace settlement in the
  former Yugoslavia.  Holbrooke said he's including Croatia's
  eastern Slavonia region in the negotiations.  Eastern Slavonia
  lies along Hungary's border.  It's the last rebel Serb-held
  region in Croatia.  Zagreb wants it back.  The Croats and
  Bosnians, meanwhile, have won sweeping gains on the
  battlefield in western and central Bosnia over the past week.
  That's caused tens of thousands of Bosnian Serb refugees to
  flee east from the rebel Serbs' main north Bosnian stronghold
  of Banja Luka.


**ETHNIC ISSUES HINDER TREATY**
  Former Soviet-bloc nations have to settle disputes over things
  like ethnic minorities before being allowed into NATO or the
  EU.  Romanian President Ion Iliescu has launched an initiative
  for rapprochement with Hungary.  The two countries have yet to
  sign a basic treaty, which would address the status of ethnic
  Hungarians in Romania.  A leading Romanian opposition party is
  backing Iliescu's initiative, but with a major caveat.  The
  National Peasant Party's deputy leader, Ion Diaconescu, told a
  news conference yesterday that the party appreciates the
  initiative but considers it a failure "as long as nationalist
  and extremists parties are in government.  Last month,
  President Illiescu called for what he described as an historic
  reconciliation between Hungary and Romania modelled on the
  post-war relationship between France and Germany.  But
  illiescu's party of social democracy is in a governing
  coalition which relies on support from the hardline
  nationalist Romanian National Unity party and anti-semitic
  Greater Romania party.  Diaconescu said, because Iliescu is
  involved with those groups, his effort to follow France and
  Germany's example is absurd.  Iliescu's initiative comes as
  Bucharest and Budapest are trying to sign a basic treaty
  settling disagreements over Transylvania and the status of the
  1.6 million ethnic Hungarians in Romania.


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  CET On-Line in electronic format is allowed only if our
  copyright notice, and all other copyright and by-line
  information contained in this publication is included.
  For-profit distribution of this publication or the information
  contained herein is strictly prohibited without the express
  written permission of Word Up! Inc., New Media Group.  These
  conditions are subject to change without notice.  For further
  information, contact Zoltan Nagy at >

  Some portions of the news provided by special agreement with
  Reuters.  For information on Reuters news and information
  products, contact your local Reuters office.


* All "Letters to the Editor" and other comments about
  editorial content should be directed to Duncan Shiels at
  >.  Any comments about distribution or
  production should be directed to Zoltan Nagy at
  >.


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  Publication.  The New Media Group also publishes the Prague
  Financial Monitor on-line.  For more information on the Prague
  FM, send a message with the word INFO in the body of a message
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OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 182, 19 September 1995

HUNGARIAN MEDIA LAW TO BE PASSED IN 1995? Hungarian Premier Gyula Horn
and the leaders of the six parliamentary parties have agreed to support
the media law and have it passed "possibly this year," Hungarian media
reported on 16 September. They decided to set up a committee to work out
a new concept for the government's draft on media legislation by 15
October. Parliamentary discussions on the media will be suspended until
the draft is ready. Since 1989, Hungary's badly needed media law has
been the subject of repeated disagreements on how to secure media
independence. Jozsef Torgyan, leader of the Smallholders' Party, left
the meeting early, protesting the Hungarian media's "discrimination
against his party." -- Zsofia Szilagyi, OMRI, Inc.

HUNGARIAN DEPUTIES ON HUNGARIAN-ROMANIAN RECONCILIATION. Socialist
deputy Matyas Szuros and Zsolt Lanyi, a representative of the
Smallholders' Party, have criticized the Hungarian-Romanian dialogue,
Hungarian newspapers reported on 18 September. Szuros noted that the
proposed Hungarian-Romanian reconciliation--announced by Romanian
President Ion Iliescu last month--must first be carried out between
ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the Romanian leadership. Only after
that, he stressed, can the problem be dealt with at an intergovernment
level. Lanyi warned that the Hungarian minority is being "held hostage"
by the new education law, and he called for more action by the Hungarian
Foreign Ministry. -- Zsofia Szilagyi, OMRI, Inc.

ROMANIA WANTS TO JOIN NATO AT SAME TIME AS HUNGARY. Evenimentul zilei on
18 September quoted Defense Minister Gheorghe Tinca as saying his
country wanted "to join NATO at all costs at the same time as Hungary."
Budapest has already set 1997 as a deadline for joining the Western
military alliance. Romania and Hungary have been negotiating a bilateral
basic treaty since 1991 but have been unable to reach agreement on the
final wording. The main stumbling block is the treatment of the large
Hungarian minority in Romania. Tinca also commented that military
relations with Russia were in "poor shape." He rejected Russian
objections to Romania's plans to join NATO and suggested that Russia was
"isolating itself" from the rest of Europe. -- Dan Ionescu, OMRI, Inc.

[As of 12:00 CET]

Compiled by Jan Cleave