OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 149, 2 August 1996

SLOVAK COALITION PARTY CONSIDERS WITHDRAWAL FROM TREATY WITH
HUNGARY. Slovak National Party (SNS) spokesman Rafael Rafaj on 1
August told TASR that "a proposal for withdrawing from the basic
Slovak-Hungarian treaty is currently being examined by our
experts." The SNS said Hungary violated the treaty when it called
for autonomy for ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries
at last month's ethnic Hungarian summit in Budapest. Slovakia has
already summoned the Hungarian ambassador to Slovakia and delivered
an "aide-memoire" to foreign diplomats to inform them of Slovakia's
dissatisfaction with the summit's conclusions. "If [the treaty] has
been violated, there is no sense in extending it further," SNS
Deputy Chairman Jozef Sedovic told Nove Slovo. The word "autonomy"
was not defined in the summit's declaration, but the Hungarian
government said later that it was referring neither to territorial
nor ethnic autonomy. -- Sharon Fisher

HUNGARIAN TELEVISION HEAD NOMINATED. The Presidium of the Board of
Trustees of Hungarian Television (MTV) has nominated Istvan Petak,
editor in chief for regional programs, as president of MTV,
Hungarian media reported on 1 August. The vote was the third
attempt in two months to appoint a TV head. Petak's nomination has
still to be approved by the full Board of Trustees. The MTV
corporation is to run Hungary's two state-owned TV channels. Petak
said he is neither an opposition nor a pro-government candidate,
but rather is neutral. Earlier this year, Istvan Hajdu was elected
president of Hungarian Radio. The media law, passed last December,
required the election of media heads by August. -- Zsofia Szilagyi

[As of 12:00 CET]

Compiled by Jan Cleave