RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 2, No. 236, 9 December 1998

HUNGARY, POLAND, CZECH REPUBLIC EXPECT TO JOIN NATO
'WITHIN WEEKS.' The foreign ministers of the Czech
Republic, Hungary, and Poland told journalists in
Brussels on 8 December that they expect their countries
to join NATO "within weeks," an RFE/RL correspondent in
Brussels reported. Jan Kavan, Janos Martonyi, and
Bronislaw Geremek spoke after attending the annual two-
day meeting of the North Atlantic Council--NATO's
governing body. It was the first time that
representatives of the three countries were present at
such a gathering. They told journalists that they are
grateful to the parliaments of the current 16 NATO
states for having ratified their accession. NATO
Secretary-General Javier Solana told journalists that he
wants to welcome the three countries into the alliance
before NATO's 50th anniversary summit in April. MS

POLISH DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS MILITARY WILL MEET NATO
STANDARDS. Janusz Onyszkiewicz said in Warsaw on 8
December that the Polish military will meet NATO's
minimum military standards by early next year, PAP
reported. Onyszkiewicz was responding to a statement by
NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana, who said at the
NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels that formal
invitations for Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic
to join the alliance will be issued only after basic
standards of interoperability are met. In other news,
Polish Prime Minister canceled a deal with Israel to arm
Polish helicopters with Israeli-made missiles. Buzek
said Israel did not test the missiles in Poland, as it
had said it would. The decision was sharply criticized
by the office of President Aleksander Kwasniewski. The
previous Polish government had cut the deal with Israel.
PB

HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES MAIN BUDGET FIGURES. The
parliament on 8 December approved the main points of the
1999 budget, Hungarian media reported. Total
expenditures are estimated at 3.51 trillion forint
($16.1 billion) and total revenues at 3.136 trillion
forint, resulting in a deficit of 374 billion forint or
less than 4 percent of GDP. Of the 900 draft amendments
submitted before the vote, only 108 were passed. MSZ

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