date=10/31/94
type=correspondent report
number=2-168544
title=Hungary / Croatia (s only)
byline=Stefan Bos
dateline=Budapest
content=
voiced at:
Intro: Hungarian defense officials say the former government
allowed Croatian forces to use Hungarian territory to launch
attacks against Serb forces. Stefan Bos in Budapest reports the
news was confirmed Monday by a spokesman of the Hungarian border
guards.
Text: A spokesman for the Hungarian border guards, colonel
Atilla Krisan, said he saw dozens of Croatian soldiers crossing
into Hungary as early as 1991.
His remarks came after a controversial report appeared this past
weekend in the magazine "New military observer," which is
published by the Hungarian Ministry of Defense.
The magazine reported Croatian forces fled the advancing
Serbian-dominated Yugoslav army.
The Hungarian defense official who wrote the report, Soltan
Simon, said that since 1991, Croatian soldiers were allowed to
enter Hungary on at least four occasions.
Mr. Simon said the Croatian soldiers prepared a counter-
offensive against Serbian forces in Hungary, near Serbian-held
territory in Croatia.
Earlier, Serbia accused Hungary of supporting Croatian forces by
providing them with accommodations and training. That charge was
denied by Hungarian authorities. But they admitted the sale of
at least 20-thousand firearms to Croatia in 1991. (signed)
neb/sb/jwh/gpt
31-Oct-94 1:56 pm est (1856 utc)
nnnn
source: Voice of America
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A tovabbterjesztest a New York-i szekhelyu Magyar Emberi Jogok
Alapitvany tamogatja.
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Reposting is supported by Hungarian Human Rights Foundation News
and Information Service.
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With EU at Crossroads, France, Germany Grapple Over Its Direction
WILLIAM DROZDIAK (WASHINGTON POST FOREIGN SERVICE)
(C) 1994 THE WASHINGTON POST (LEGI-SLATE ARTICLE NO. 215483)
PARIS - The imminent expansion of the European Union to the north and the
east is creating a deep cleavage of interests between France and Germany that
may imperil closer political and economic integration, according to diplomats
and politicians in several European capitals.
Once regarded as a vital adjustment to the new realities of the post-Cold
War era, the incorporation of Austria, Norway, Sweden and Finland by the end
of this year and perhaps such eastern states as Poland, Hungary and the Czech
Republic by the end of the decade is provoking fresh alarm about the
strategic consequences of such a dramatic shift in Europe's center of
gravity. If the EU ignores Europe's southern neighbors, France and its allies
contend, the Union will do so at the coalition's peril.
"There is a major imbalance to the detriment of the south in favor of the
east," said Manuel Marin, a Spaniard who heads the EU development aid
program. "The east receives five times as much aid, although the south
supplies much of Europe's oil and gas and has sent many more immigrants to
work here. It's time to reestablish the balance."
While nobody is talking about revoking offers to prospective members,
there is a new sense of urgency among European governments that something
must be done to cope with the centrifugal forces or the EU could revert to
being little more than a free-trade area, or even ultimately split apart.
"Contradictions are beginning to emerge, and we must prevent them from
becoming lethal," said French President Francois Mitterrand recently after
two days of talks with Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez on the looming
impact of EU enlargement.
Worried by the threat of political instability in North Africa, the EU's
leading southern states - France, Spain and Italy - have demanded that the
Union turn its attentions toward security risks posed in the Mediterranean by
Islamic radicalism, economic chaos and mass migration.
The EU's executive commission has proposed a new economic and security
pact that would more than double European aid to North Africa by dispensing
more than $7 billion over the next five years. The plan calls for the
creation of the world's largest free-trade zone by 2010, linking as many as
40 countries and 800 million citizens.
The plan is scheduled for debate at the next summit meeting of European
leaders in Essen, Germany, this December. But the Germans already have been
lukewarm toward the pact, particularly because they would be asked to foot a
large share of the bill at a time when they want to concentrate resources on
the east.
German diplomats contend that the eastern states deserve priority because
the continent needs a new security structure to prevent any further east-west
divisions. The eastern states also have European cultural and historical
affinities,along with more adaptable economies, that make them more natural
partners than the North African countries.
"Unlike the former communist countries in the east, you cannot say that
the North African states have made the transition to full democracies," a
German official said. He noted that the income disparity was so vast -
$20,000 per capita annual income in the EU, compared with about $1,000 in
North Africa - that any aid program "would involve pouring huge sums of money
into a risky venture that offers no guarantee of success."
In contrast, senior French officials say that coping with Islamic
radicalism should be considered the West's gravest security priority. They
believe the German view offers troubling evidence that the special
relationship between Paris and Bonn, which served for four decades as the
motor in driving progress toward European unity, is changing inexorably under
the pressure of competing national interests.
"This shift in strategic priorities, with Germany looking east and France
looking south, is something that the Paris-Bonn axis did not have to worry
about in the past," a senior French government analyst said. "But it is a
dichotomy that is bound to grow in the years to come, and how we handle each
other's fears will be crucial to the fate of our relationship."
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, having secured an electoral mandate for
his fourth term, has declared that his primary tasks will focus on
"deepening" Europe through bolder steps to political and economic union and
"widening" it to include the former communist countries on Germany's eastern
flank.
Joachim Bitterlich, Kohl's chief foreign policy adviser, recently told a
rench audience that a plan floated by Germany's ruling Christian Democrats
to accelerate the pace toward a federal Europe by building on a "hard core"
of Germany, France and the Benelux countries reflected Bonn's sense of
urgency in the chancellor's quest.
"You must bear in mind two signals in this document," Bitterlich said.
"It is an appeal to all Europeans to continue European integration. And it is
also a warning that Germany, situated in the heart of Europe, cannot accept
zero progress."
But French voters have become more skeptical lately about sharing
further sovereignty in a Europe with Germany as a powerful hub. Whoever
succeeds Mitterrand as the country's next president is likely to be
constrained by voter anguish from taking bold steps toward the greater
political and economic unity that Kohl may have in mind.
France's powerful farmers, already incensed over a loss in income caused
by fierce competition from other Mediterranean states, have vowed to oppose
any special arrangements for eastern farmers to bring them up to the more
prosperous standards in the West.
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A tovabbterjesztest a New York-i szekhelyu Magyar Emberi Jogok
Alapitvany tamogatja.
[*] [*] [*] [*] [*][*] [*][*][*]
[*] [*] [*] [*] [*] [*] [*]
[*][*][*] [*][*][*] [*][*] [*][*]
[*] [*] [*] [*] [*] [*] [*]
[*] [*] [*] [*] [*] [*] [*]
Reposting is supported by Hungarian Human Rights Foundation News
and Information Service.
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