RFE/RL NEWSLINE 
Vol 1, No. 72, 14 July 1997

SLOVAK OPPOSITION LEADS IN OPINION POLL. An opinion poll
conducted earlier this month by the Factum agency and published on
13 July shows that overall support for the government coalition
parties is lower than for the opposition. Prime Minister Vladimir
Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia gained 27 percent of
the vote, while its coalition partners, the Slovak National Party and
the Slovak Workers' Party, won 8.2 and 4 percent, respectively. The
opposition Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) was supported by
12.1 percent of the respondents, the Democratic Union by 11.8
percent, the three-party ethnic Hungarian alliance by 11.6 percent,
and the post-Communist Democratic Left Party by 10.5 percent.

DEFENSE MINISTERS OF NATO CANDIDATE COUNTRIES MEET IN
BUDAPEST. The Polish, Hungarian, and Czech Defense Ministers met
in Budapest on 12 July to discuss coordination of their policies
following the Madrid summit's invitation to join NATO. Hungarian
Defense Minister Gyoergy Keleti told a press conference that they
reached an agreement on close cooperation in developing their
armed forces, adding that special attention will be paid to acquiring
fighter aircraft. Czech Defense Minister Miloslav Vyborny said no
decision has been reached on the type of aircraft the three states will
purchase, Reuters reported. He said the decision was one involving
not only the ministers of defense but also the three countries'
governments and parliaments. Keleti, Vyborny, and Polish Defense
Minister Stanisalw Dobrzanski agreed to maintain cooperation with
other East European states that were not included in the first wave of
NATO expansion.

HUNGARIAN DEFENSE MINISTER ON NATO. Keleti on 11 July told
Hungarian state television that Hungary will not join NATO if the
move is voted down in the planned referendum. But he noted he was
confident that voters will back membership in the alliance since
opinion polls show some 60 percent of the population supporting the
idea. .The previous day, the seven parliamentary parties agreed that
the referendum should be held after talks with NATO begin in
September, in order to be certain of the conditions for joining, AFP
reported.

HUNGARIAN OPPOSITION PARTY OUTLAWS INTERNAL FACTION. The
leadership of the Christian Democratic Party has banned the so-called
Barankovics Platform Group from operating within the party. The
group was formed on 6 July by those opposed to the election the
previous month of Gyoergy Giczy as party chairman. It includes a
large number of the party's representatives in the legislature (see
"RFE/RL Newsline," 7 July 1997). Karoly Czako, chairman of the
party's disciplinary committee, said the group includes former top
party officials who intended to "worm their way back" into the
leadership. But one of the group's leaders, deputy Laszlo Varga, said
the group will "continue to function in some form or another,"
Hungarian media reported on 13 July.


UNDERMINING NATO'S TIMETABLE

by Paul Goble

        The timetable for NATO expansion announced at the Madrid
summit on 8-9 July may break down even before the alliance takes
in its first new members two years from now. The summit invited
three countries--Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic--to begin
accession talks leading to membership by 1999. The alliance leaders
indicated they will consider inviting a second group of countries in
that year and that they will keep the process of including ever more
East European countries in the alliance both open and deliberate
after that time.
        This carefully worked-out timetable reflected calculations by
some NATO leaders about how both their own populations and
Moscow would react. Many NATO leaders noted that they could not
hope to win popular support for the costs of expansion if the alliance
tried to take in too many countries too quickly. Even more NATO
leaders suggested that a slow, step-by-step expansion is the only
way to avoid offending Moscow and pushing Russia back into an
adversarial role.
        But there are already at least three indications that the
Western alliance may have a number of difficulties in holding to that
script.
        First, many of the countries that had hoped to be invited into
the alliance now or in the near future are stepping up their
campaigns for membership rather than accepting the Madrid
timetable. The countries that had hoped to make it into the first
round--Slovenia, Romania, and the three Baltic States--indicated that
they will increase their efforts to be included sooner than the Madrid
schedule. Lithuanian President Algirdas Brazauskas, for example,
pointed out on 9 July that "a long-term cataclysm could occur in
three, four, or five years." As a result, he said, Vilnius wanted
"guarantees for the future" sooner rather than later.
        Other East European countries that were not expected to be
included took courage from the alliance's decision to expand and
indicated that they, too, might press for membership far sooner than
the NATO leaders had planned. Buoyed by their charter with the
Western alliance, several Ukrainian political figures said they hoped
Ukraine will achieve NATO membership in the not too distant future-
-something no one in the alliance now appears to be contemplating.
        Second, the three countries that were invited to join at Madrid
reportedly have agreed to press for the more rapid inclusion of the
Baltic States into the Western alliance. The presidents of Poland, the
Czech Republic, and Hungary met with their counterparts from
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania on 9 July and told them they will press
for Baltic membership in the alliance as soon as possible. Latvian
President Guntis Ulmanis said he and his Baltic colleagues looked to
the three Madrid invitees "to become advocates" of the rapid
inclusion of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
        Such support for Baltic membership may be more difficult to
resist than the NATO planners expected. In addition to Polish,
Hungarian, and Czech support, the Balts received backing from
Thomas Siebert, the ambassador to Sweden. Siebert told the Swedish
newspaper "Dagens Nyheter" on 9 July that "we will not consider the
expansion of NATO to be accomplished or successful unless or before
the Baltic States' ambitions are fulfilled."
        Both the efforts of those who hope to join and the attitudes of
those already invited to do so will put pressure on the alliance to
move more quickly than it had planned, especially since those on the
outside are likely to view any delay as a sell-out of their security.
        But the third indication that the Madrid timetable may not be
kept suggests that NATO may not expand as quickly as the Madrid
summit planned. The pressure on NATO from both those included
and those not yet in inevitably raises the stakes of the first round of
alliance expansion and thus virtually guarantees increased opposition
to any growth in the alliance from both Moscow and many in the
West.
        Russian leaders, including President Boris Yeltsin, have
indicated that they can accept NATO's expansion only if it is both
limited and deliberate. Consequently, at least some in Moscow are
likely to consider the statements of those countries not invited in and
especially of those invited to join at Madrid to pose a threat--one,
moreover, that Russia is likely to respond to.
        Such a response will have an impact on the ratification debates
in the current NATO member countries and provide ammunition to
those who oppose any growth in the alliance. As a result, the
euphoria about the Madrid NATO summit could quickly evaporate, as
some countries discover that their own enthusiasms threaten their
own interests.
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