RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE  18 October 1999

VISEGRAD GROUP TO UNITE AGAINST ORGANIZED CRIME. The prime
ministers of Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech
Republic agreed during a 16 October meeting of the Visegrad
group to cooperate in order to combat organized crime,
Reuters reported. Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban called the
decision "the most important" of the two-day talks in the
Slovak resort town of Tatranska Javorina. A commission will
be formed to seek ways to prevent cross-border crime. Polish
Premier Jerzy Buzek said the Visegrad group was renewed last
year to help Slovakia rejoin integration efforts but that now
it will act as a bridge between the East and the West. The
four premiers also agreed to set up a secretariat in
Bratislava to deal with issues related to Roma. The next
meeting will be in Prague in 2000. PB

HUNGARY VOWS NOT TO BARTER WITH RUSSIA. After a two-year
break, the Hungarian-Russian Economic Cooperation Committee
met in Budapest on 15 October and agreed to seek new ways to
revive bilateral trade. Hungarian Economics Minister Attila
Chikan said after the meeting that "commercial ties must be
based on market demands and not on intergovernmental barter
deals." Following last year's financial crisis in Russia,
trade between the two countries dropped by 26 percent, while
Hungarian exports to Russia fell by 70 percent. Russian
Finance Minister Mikhail Kasyanov met with Hungarian Interior
Minister Sandor Pinter to discuss combating money laundering
and organized crime. MSZ

HUNGARIAN PREMIER SAYS COUNTRY READY FOR EU IN 2002. Viktor
Orban said in Frankfurt on 15 October that Hungary is at
least as ready for EU membership as Greece or Spain were when
they were admitted to the union, Hungarian TV reported. Orban
said there should be "no obstacle whatsoever to our admission
in January 2002." In other news, the government announced a
plan to slim down state television, which will result in the
laying off of some 500 employees. The broadcaster accumulated
a 12 billion forint ($50 million) debt last year. PB

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