RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 2, No. 112, 12 June 1998

KOHL SUPPORTS POLAND'S WESTERN INTEGRATION. Polish Prime
Minister Jerzy Buzek and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
opened an international youth center in the village of
Krzyzowa, in southwestern Poland, on 11 June. The center,
whose construction was financed by the German government, is
located on the former estate of a German count who staged an
unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Kohl
pledged Germany's support to Poland in its drive "to enter
the EU as swiftly as possible." "Our aim is for Poland,
together with the Czech Republic and Hungary, to join NATO
in spring 1998," Reuters quoted the German chancellor as
saying. JM

HUNGARY'S FIDESZ, SMALLHOLDERS AGREE ON COALITION
PRINCIPLES. Federation of Young Democrats-Hungarian Civic
Party (FIDESZ-MPP) chairman Viktor Orban and Independent
Smallholders' Party (FKGP) leader Jozsef Torgyan have
reached an agreement on coalition issues that proved
problematic until now, Hungarian media reported on 11 June.
The "secret" meeting between the two party chairmen took
place in Torgyan's summer house outside Budapest. According
to FKGP sources, Orban will submit the lineup of his
coalition cabinet to the parliament on 18 June. The FKGP
reportedly will have the agriculture and defense portfolios.
Torgyan is likely to take over the former and FKGP deputy
chairman Zsolt Lanyi the latter. MSZ

ROMANIAN EDUCATION MINISTER OPPOSED TO HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY.
Andrei Marga on 11 June told journalists that ethnic
Hungarians face "no restrictions" in studying in their own
language at universities and that setting up a separate
state-financed Hungarian-language university is above all a
"symbolic" demand. He said it is "deplorable" that
university education in Cluj has been turned into an
"ethnicized issue." Marga stressed that he continues to
support a "multi-cultural approach" such as exists at the
Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj. That approach, he
explained, allows each ethnic community to preserve its
identity without disrupting "inter-ethnic cultural
communication." Marga said a separate university in
Transylvania could be the harbinger of movements that are
"undesirable," an RFE/RL correspondent reported. In a
separate statement, the Education Ministry said solutions
providing for "ethnic assimilation or ethnic separation" are
"equally counter-productive." MS


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