OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 37, 21 February 1997
ALBRIGHT OFFERS NEW PROPOSAL IN MOSCOW . . . U.S. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright arrived in Moscow on 20 February for talks with
Russian Foreign Minister Yevgenii Primakov and Prime Minister Viktor
Chernomyrdin, international agencies reported. Albright presented
Primakov with a new proposal to freeze conventional forces at current
levels in Belarus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia,
western Ukraine, and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, AFP reported.
The same day, the proposal was released at the ongoing CFE talks in
Vienna. Albright described her talks with Primakov as "serious and
constructive," Reuters reported, while Primakov said Russia was doing
everything it could to "minimize the negative consequences" of NATO
expansion. On 21 February, Albright met with President Boris Yeltsin. --
Peter Rutland
CZECH PREMIER IN CANADA. After meeting with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav
Klaus, who is on a week-long visit to Canada, Canadian Prime Minister
Jean Chretien said on 20 February it was time to live up to promises to
enlarge NATO despite Russian misgivings, international media reported.
Chretien said he backed membership by the Czech Republic, Poland,
Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Romania, though he noted they would not
all be able to join in the first stage of expanding the alliance. "The
time has come for us to live up to our promise. When the Czech Republic
decided to become a democracy and to become a market economy, we said
clearly at the time that it should become a member of NATO one day,"
Chretien said. -- Jiri Pehe
SLOVAK MINORITY LANGUAGE LAW DISCUSSED IN BUDAPEST. Max van der Stoel,
the OSCE high commissioner on national minorities, met with Hungarian
Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs on 20 February in Budapest, Reuters
reported. Van der Stoel urged Slovakia to pass the long-delayed law on
minority languages. Kovacs recently appealed to Slovakia to approve the
law, saying Bratislava is violating international commitments by
delaying the legislation. Since financial penalties for violating
Slovakia's state language law went into effect in January, Hungarian-
language schools have stopped issued bilingual grade reports, which has
caused great controversy among ethnic Hungarian parents. In other news,
the International Court of Justice on 20 February announced that it will
open hearings on 3 March on the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam dispute between
Slovakia and Hungary. -- Sharon Fisher
PHILIPS TO BUILD PLANT IN HUNGARY. Officials from the Dutch electronics
group Philips on 20 February announced plans to build a car radio plant
in Gyor in northwestern Hungary, AFP and Hungarian media reported. The
factory, which will start production next July, will have the capacity
to manufacture 5 million car radios annually, primarily for export.
Philips plans to invest 30 million dollars in the plant over the next
two years. The factory will initially employ 600-800 workers and
eventually 1,000. Philips has already invested $80 million in Hungary
and employs 5,200 workers. -- Sharon Fisher
FRENCH PRESIDENT ON ROMANIA AND NATO. In an interview with the Bucharest
daily Adevarul published on 20 February, Jacques Chirac said he tried to
gather support for Romania's application to join NATO during recent
talks with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. He praised
Romania's democratic change of power of last November and the "historic
accord" with Hungary signed last September. Chirac said that Romania is
"very important [for NATO], especially for the southern flank" and that
France will spare no efforts to convince its NATO allies that Romania
must be part of the first wave of enlargement. The French president is
expected today in Bucharest for a two-day visit. -- Zsolt Mato
[As of 12:00 CET]
Compiled by Victor Gomez
Compiled by Susan Caskie
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