OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 9, 12 January 1996

SLOVAK FOREIGN MINISTER DISCUSSES POLICY AIMS. Juraj Schenk, briefing
journalists on Slovak foreign policy on 11 January, stressed that the
"catastrophic scenario of Slovakia's international isolation" has not
materialized. He said that membership in the EU and NATO remains a top
priority, as well as good relations with neighboring countries, and that
"we have no doubt that the Slovak-Hungarian treaty will be ratified."
Schenk refuted recent rumors that Slovak firms will assist in the
construction of Russian-made nuclear reactors in Iraq, saying such a
move is not in line with Slovakia's foreign policy goals. -- Sharon
Fisher

OSCE OFFICIAL IN BUDAPEST. OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities
Max van der Stoel arrived in Budapest on 11 January and held brief
meetings with Hungarian Foreign Ministry Commissioner Andras Gyenge. The
two officials discussed the situation of ethnic minorities in Hungary,
Council of Europe measures on minority rights, the Slovak language law,
and the Hungarian-Slovak basic treaty. -- Zsofia Szilagyi

[As of 12:00 CET]

Compiled by Jan Cleave


Wednesday, 10 January 1996
Volume 2, Issue 237


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

**GROSZ RISES FROM THE DEAD**
A posthumous interview published on Thursday
with former communist leader Karoly Grosz, who died of cancer on
Sunday, paints a critical picture of Hungary's present
ex-communist leaders. In the interview, which Grosz gave to the
daily Nepszava on condition that it appear only after his death,
he quotes Hungary's current Prime Minister Gyula Horn as
pleading with veteran communist Janos Kadar to stay on before
Grosz replaced him in 1988."Without you, Comrade Kadar, there is
no progress, you must remain," Grosz quotes Horn as aying.Kadar,
installed as party boss after Russian tanks crushed the 1956
Hungarian anti-communist uprising, moved aside for Grosz after
32 years at a party congress in May 1988, clearing the way for
reform.Grosz also criticised Horn, and Miklos Nemeth, the last
prime minister before free elections in 1990, for taking all the
credit for opening Hungary's border with Austria to 30,000 East
German refugees refusing to return home in the summer of 1989.
Horn was foreign minister at the time.The move led directly to
the fall of hard-line East German communist leader Erich
Honecker and is seen by many as the first crack in the Berlin
Wall.


**NEW HUNGARIAN AUSTERITY PLAN**
Hungary's finance minister Lajos Bokros announced a new
austerity package to follow up the controversial measures taken
last year to reduce the country's spiralling budget and current
account deficits.Bokros, speaking on television on Wednesday
evening, said the new measures, which would concentrate on
streamlining the public welfare system, were likely to be
published before the ruling Socialist Party's congress at the
end of March. The minister said that while the Hungarian
economy has substantially improved in the past few years, the
welfare system has been left unchanged.The country has spent too
much to protect too many people, while those who were really in
need could only get limited help, he added.Hungary's Health
Insurance Fund, one of the country's two social security
organisations, announced on Wednesday that it had missed its
break-even target and made a deficit of 20 billion forints
($143.7 million) in 1995.The International Monetary Fund's
condition for awarding a long-awaited stand-by loan facility to
Hungary is that the country should approve a strict 1996 budget
for the social security funds.


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