RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 2, No. 171, 4 September 1998

ETHNIC HUNGARIAN PARTY TO LEAVE ROMANIAN COALITION?  Hungarian Democratic
Federation of Romania (UDMR) chairman Bela Marko told journalists on 3
September that the UDMR demands from its  ruling coalition partners "a
clear-cut answer" on their commitment to cooperation with the UDMR and to
minority rights.  Responding to the vote by the Chamber of Deputies'
Education Commission the previous day, Marko said that not only opposition
members but also members of the ruling coalition, including Education
Minister Andrei Marga, are responsible for "anti-minority instigations." He
said that "from now on," the UDMR will act "in conformity with our own
program and the interests of our electors."
UDMR deputies boycotted debates in the Chamber of
Deputies on 3 September, and Marko said the party's
ministers will vote against envisaged budget cuts,
RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. MS

MODERATE UDMR LEADER PLEDGES TO RESIGN. Gyorgy Tokay, who as head of the
Department for National Minorities has ministerial rank, said on 3 September
that  he will resign from the cabinet if a Hungarian-language state
university is not set up. Tokay is considered to be the most prominent
leader of the UDMR's "moderate faction."
But the chairman of the Chamber of Deputies' Education
Commission, Anghel Stanciu, said in a letter to Tokay
the same day that the government commission studying
ways to set up such a university must be disbanded in
the wake of the vote by the Education Commission. The
ruling coalition party leaders are meeting with
President Emil Constantinescu on 4 September, and the
UDMR's complaints are on the meeting's agenda. MS

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