RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE  22 December 1999

HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES LEGISLATION ON REGALIA. The
parliament on 21 December approved legislation honoring the
St. Stephen crown as the foremost national symbol and
authorizing its display in the house of the parliament
alongside other regalia, AP reported. The royal cloak will
remain in the National Museum because it is too fragile to
move. Stephen I ruled Hungary between 1000 and 1038.
Opponents of the move from among the opposition argued that
it is too expensive and that it harkened back to customs of
Hungary's authoritarian Horthy times. In unrelated news,
Smallholders Party deputies on the same day thwarted a
government bill on privatizing medical practice, voting
with the opposition against its provisions. Hungarian media
report that the Smallholders thus retaliated against the
refusal of major coalition partner FIDESZ to allow them to
select the president of the Babolna agricultural concern.
MS

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