RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 2, No. 170, 3 September 1998

SLOVAKIA TURNS TO THE HAGUE AGAIN IN DAM DISPUTE WITH
HUNGARY. Slovakia is again appealing to the
International Court of Justice in The Hague to rule on
the ongoing dispute with Hungary over the Danube
hydroelectric power plant. Slovak Foreign Minister
Zdenka Kramplova notified her Hungarian counterpart,
Janos Martonyi, of this decision in a 2 September
letter. Hungarian Foreign Ministry spokesman Gabor
Horvath told journalists that his country is "ready to
accept the involvement of an impartial third party."
Gyorgy Szenasi, Hungary's representative at the trial,
said it is "surprising" that Bratislava's move comes
shortly before the Slovak general elections. Since no
agreement was reached on implementing the court's
earlier ruling, both parties are entitled to appeal to
the court again, he concluded. MSZ

ROMANIAN PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSION REJECTS ETHNIC
HUNGARIAN DEMANDS... The Chamber of Deputies' Education
Commission on 2 September rejected the amendment to the
education law, proposed by Victor Ciorbea's cabinet,
that would have set up a Hungarian-language state
university. Last December, the Senate's Education
Commission rejected that amendment but endorsed setting
up separate departments that would provide instruction
in Romanian and Hungarian. The chamber's commission
decided to allow only "sections and groups within
multicultural universities," where teaching in ethnic
minority languages is permitted. It also decided that
instruction in just one of those languages can be
offered only by private universities. Deputy Aureliu
Emil Sandulescu of the ruling coalition's National
Peasant Party Christian Democratic (PNTCD), who proposed
the resolution, said the move comes to "emphasize that
Romania is a unitary state, not a federal one." He added
that a Hungarian-language state university would signify
"a first step toward federalism." MS

...WHILE ETHNIC HUNGARIAN PARTY WARNS OF CONSEQUENCES.
Csaba Takacs, executive chairman of the Hungarian
Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR), responded by
saying that the UDMR will now have to "reconsider its
participation in the ruling coalition" at the 5
September meeting of its Council of Representatives. The
UDMR's coalition partners had promised that the Senate's
decision would be amended by the Chamber of Deputies in
accordance with the coalition agreement. Also on 2
September, George Pruteanu, who led the opposition to
the amendment in the Senate and who has since been
expelled from the PNTCD, was replaced as chairman of the
Senate's Education Commission by PNTCD Senator Florin
Bogdan. Meanwhile, the government commission set up to
discuss ways of establishing a Hungarian state
university convened for the first time on 2 September.
MS

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