RFE/RL NEWSLINE 
Vol. 1, No. 108, 2 September1997

HUNGARIAN PREMIER REJECTS CALL TO RESIGN. A panel of judges
examining the communist past of senior officials has called on Gyula
Horn to resign after establishing that he served in the armed forces
following the 1956 uprising and that, in his capacity as a senior
Foreign Ministry official from1985-1990, he received secret service
reports. Under the law, those notified by the panel should resign
within 30 days, otherwise the panel's findings will be released. Horn
reports. Under the law, those notified by the panel should resign
within 30 days, otherwise the panel's findings will be released. Horn
himself made public the panel's ruling at a press conference on 1
September. "I see neither moral nor legal reasons to resign," Horn
said, adding that all significant aspects of his past were known both
by the voters who elected him as a deputy and by the parliament,
which elected him prime minister. "With my present statement, I
regard the case closed," he remarked.

HUNGARY TO RETURN PROPERTY TO SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH.
Parliamentary speaker Zoltan Gal on 1 September said that the
Serbian Orthodox Church in Hungary will get back property
confiscated by the Hungarian communist leadership. Of the 38
properties nationalized in the 1940s, 18 have already been returned
to the Church and another 10 will be returned over the next 14
years. Hungary will pay annuities to the Church for the remaining 10
properties. In other news, the government coalition on 1 September
ruled that a new law guaranteeing parliamentary representation of
the country's 13 minorities will be adopted this fall.
ruled that a new law guaranteeing parliamentary representation of
the country's 13 minorities will be adopted this fall.


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