RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE 21 October 1999

BUDAPEST CEFTA MEETING FAILS TO RESOLVE PROBLEMS. The 20
October Budapest summit of prime ministers from Central
European Free Trade Agreement countries failed to resolve
disputes among member states over agricultural exports,
Hungarian media reported. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor
Orban said the current level of liberalization should be
maintained in bilateral agricultural trade. Polish Prime
Minister Jerzy Buzek commented agricultural trade cannot be
liberalized within CEFTA as long as member-states continue to
subsidize agricultural production in different ways. Orban
said after the summit that all seven delegations "see the
roots of the problem in the same way but no longer wish to
formulate a joint agricultural policy." VG

HUNGARIAN, ROMANIAN JUSTICE MINISTERS DISCUSS RECONCILIATION.
Visiting Romanian Justice Minister Valeriu Stoica said on 20
October that he regrets the 6 October events in the Romanian
town of Arad, where anti-Hungarian demonstrators disrupted
the unveiling of a statue of Hungarian heroes of the 1848
revolution. Stoica, who was visiting Budapest, told Hungarian
Justice Minister Ibolya David that the concept of
"reconciliation" between the two countries should be replaced
by one of "friendship." Stoica said the demonstrators had
"failed to understand that emotions must be expressed in a
civilized manner." VG

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