RFE/RL NEWSLINE 
Vol. 1, No. 113, 9 September1997

MULTINATIONAL PEACEKEEPING EXERCISES START IN POLAND. Two
multi-national peacekeeping exercises began at Polish military
training sites on 8 September. Some 350 soldiers from Poland, the
U.S., Denmark, Finland, Hungary, and Ukraine are participating in a
peacekeeping exercise, called Brave Eagle, using computers to help
train a multinational brigade. In the Eagle's Talon exercise, Polish and
U.S. airmen are carrying out peacekeeping maneuvers during
simulated ethnic conflict. Both exercises will last until 9 September.

SLOVAK COALITION PARTIES SUPPORT "MINORITY EXCHANGE" WITH
HUNGARY. Leaders of two junior coalition parties--the Slovak
National Party (SNS) and the Slovak Workers' Party--told journalists
on 8 September that their formations do not reject the idea of a
"voluntary exchange of minorities between Slovakia and Hungary."
Slovak Premier Meciar proposed such an exchange at a meeting with
his Hungarian counterpart, Gyula Horn, in mid-August. SNS chairman
Jan Slota said the departure of "discontented people" to Hungary was
a "possible and constructive solution." Also on 8 September, ethnic
Jan Slota said the departure of "discontented people" to Hungary was
a "possible and constructive solution." Also on 8 September, ethnic
Hungarian minority leaders called on Meciar to resign in connection
with his proposal. In an open letter, the chairmen of three
parliamentary Hungarian minority parties said that Meciar's proposal
coincides with the 50th anniversary of the postwar "resettlement
and deportation" of the German and Hungarian populations.

HUNGARY MAY POSTPONE NATO REFERENDUM. Prime Minister Horn
said on 8 September-- the first day of the parliament's fall session--
that the government may postpone the referendum on NATO
membership, currently scheduled for 16 November, Hungarian media
reported. Opposition members of a parliamentary committee recently
refused to give priority attention to the referendum. It therefore
cannot be held according to schedule, Horn said. He added that the
vote, which will also include a question on foreign ownership of land,
is likely to take place on 23 or 30 November

CROATIA LAUNCHES MAJOR HIGHWAY PROJECT. Transport Minister
Zeljko Luzavec said on 8 September that the government will give
top priority to finishing a highway linking Rijeka to Zagreb and the
Hungarian border by the year 2000, an RFE/RL correspondent
reported from Zagreb. Observers noted that highway construction
and other infrastructure projects are of central political and economic
importance both to Croatia and to neighboring Slovenia. Meanwhile
in Ljubljana, a spokesman for the Slovenian People's Party
announced that the party will run parliamentary speaker Janez
Podobnik in the presidential elections expected later this year, the
announced that the party will run parliamentary speaker Janez
Podobnik in the presidential elections expected later this year, the
"Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" reported on 8 September. Podobnik
is the first prominent politician to enter the race against incumbent
President Milan Kucan, whom most observers expect to be easily
reelected.


"EASTERN EUROPE NO LONGER EXISTS"
by Jeremy Bransten and Jolyon Naegele

        Timothy Garton Ash, British historian and expert on Central
Europe, says it is quite clear that Eastern Europe no longer exists. He
made the comment in Prague during the recent Forum 2000
conference on the state of the world at the turn of the millennium.
As Garton Ash put it, today there is east-central Europe, southeastern
conference on the state of the world at the turn of the millennium.
As Garton Ash put it, today there is east-central Europe, southeastern
Europe, and several other Europes, and their sets of problems are
quite different.
        Garton Ash, a professor at Oxford University, is the author of
books on Poland's Solidarity trade union movement, the Czech velvet
revolution, and German unification. His latest work recounts how he
read his East German secret police (Stasi) file.
        Garton Ash notes that he was among those who in the 1980s
popularized the notion of Central Europe. "We meant it of course in
contra-distinction to the Soviet Eastern Europe." But he says that
what has happened since 1989 is that the idea of "Central Europe"
has more or less collapsed. In its stead, attempts have been made to
point to a new division between Orthodox and Roman Catholic
Europe. But this distinction, too, is a dubious one, according to Garton
Ash.
        He also notes that Slovakia, albeit nominally a Roman Catholic
nation, will not be among the former Communist states of Central
Europe joining NATO in 1999 and that its prospects for joining the EU
nation, will not be among the former Communist states of Central
Europe joining NATO in 1999 and that its prospects for joining the EU
are quite remote. He says that the three nations that have been
invited to join NATO--the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland--are
only a part of what is usually considered Roman Catholic Central
Europe.
        Garton Ash says Slovakia has shown many predictions about
the post-Communist world to be dramatically wrong: "Slovakia could
have been in NATO in 1999; Slovakia blew it." In his view, Slovakia
failed because of politics, and the quality of post-Communist politics
in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, as opposed to post-
Communist politics elsewhere, have made the crucial difference.
        Garton Ash believes that many Western politicians are
convinced that NATO can admit Poland, Hungary, and the Czech
Republic and then stop its expansion for a long time. But he says he
is convinced this view is not realistic. There is a logic that leads from
one expansion to the next, and the first waves of NATO and EU
expansion to the East are only the beginning of a very long process,
he stresses.
        Asked whether Czech President Vaclav Havel, one of the
organizers of Forum 2000, should consider retiring from politics
when his current term expires early next year, Garton Ash
responded that while change is always a healthy thing, Havel had a
clear choice whether to remain in politics five years ago, when
Czechoslovakia ceased to exist. At that time, he said, Havel decided to
lead the new Czech Republic rather rrently being questioned-most notably,
the West German model of a market economy. The West in general,
he adds, faces the huge challenge of structural, large-scale
unemployment, whose outcome is unpredictable: "If we do not know
what kind of capitalism is emerging out of the crisis in the West, I do
not quite know how we can predict what will come in the East."

The authors are RFE/RL news editors. Garton Ash's remarks are
taken from an interview with RFE/RL and from his lecture at Forum
2000.

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