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Carolina (English) No 041
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STUDENT'S E-MAIL NEWS FROM CZECHOSLOVAKIA
School of Social Science of Charles University
Smetanovo nabr. 6
110 01 Prague 1
C.S.F.R.
e-mail address: CAROLINA@CSEARN.BITNET
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C A R O L I N A No 41, Friday, September 18, 1992.
SURVEY OF THE EVENTS OF THE PAST WEEK (September 9 - 16)
The Association Treaty between the CSFR and the European Community will
not be ratified
In brief, this is the news from the visit of the Czechoslovak
minister of foreign affairs, J. Moravcik, to Brussels. The Czech press
quoted the representative of the minister of foreign affairs, P.
Bratinka, who also participated in the discussions, on Thursday,
September 10: "Both Andriessen and Delors (the vice-chairman and
chairman of the commission of the European Community) said that do not
think that the association agreement will be ratified before the breakup
of the Czechoslovak federation. That is the first bad news. The second
piece of bad news is that the first euphoria in the West, during which
the original agreement was concluded, has somewhat cooled." He added
that the contents of the new agreement would be, in his opinion, worse.
The European Parliament in Strassbourg will discuss the association
agreements with Poland and Hungary from Tuesday, September 15.
Vaclav Klaus Met with Hana Suchocka
Premier Klaus and the Polish Premier Hana Suchocka agreed during
a meeting on Sunday in the Polish village of Rudawa near the
Czech-Polish border on the necessity of increasing the number of
frontier crossings and speeding up the process of creating a free-trade
zone (from the planned eight years to less than four).
Vladimir Meciar Goes to Hungary on the Invitation of Premier Antall
On his first foreign visit in his new function the head of the
Slovak government Vladimir Meciar went to neighboring Hungary on
Wednesday, September 9. The divergent positions on the completion of the
hydroelectric dam at Gabcikovo and the question of the national
minorities nothing has really changed, but the delegation agreed to
create a commision which will adjudicate both the problems.
Carolina number 27 wrote about Gabcikovo under the title
"Unenviable Richness."
A New Director of Czechoslovak Press Agency (CSTK) from September 15
The firing of Petr Uhl from his function as director of the
Czechoslovak Press Agency and the naming of his replacement -- Tomas
Kopriva is a member of the governing Civic Democratic Party -- took
place accoriding to the letter of the law (the director of a state
agency is named and fired by the federal government), but nevertheless
it called forth associations with the practices of the former regime.
Again what is decisive in filling functions is not professional
qualifications, but party membership (in the present situation both
victorious parties: in the Czech lands the Civic Democratic Party, and
in Slovakia the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia).
The Case of Miroslav Macek
The media have devoted a full week to the information about the
entrepreneurial activities of Miroslav Macek, vice-president of the
federal government and the Civic Democratic Party, delegate to the
Federal Assembly (both in the previous and current elections).
For example, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes writes about the direct
sale of the Knizni velkoobchod concern (one of the main distributers of
books in the CSFR) to J. R. Vilimek. The owners of J. R. Vilimek are M.
Macek and the editor-in-chief of the economic weekly TOP, J. Menzel
(before November the representative of the director of CSTK). "LSU
(Liberal-Social Union, an opposition parliamentary group--eds.) Will Try
to Get Miroslav Macek Fired" was its headline. It also reported on the
interpellation of the Social-Democratic delegate Dostal, who considers
"similar business practices by people carrying out higher
consititutional functions as extremely questionable and unethical," in
spite of the fact that this year in the Spring a law on conflict of
interest was passed. During the interpellation the delegate insisted
that Knizni velkoobchod, though it has a market value of 500 million
crowns (20 million USD), was sold to the firm J. R. Vilimek for a book
value of 60 million crowns (2.4 million USD). He further asked the
vice-chairman of the govenrment whether it was true that the necessary
60 million crowns were obtained by a loan from the Commercial Bank,
whose general director is a party colleague, and what sort of security
for the load was offered, when the weekly Telegraf, published by
Vilimek, died with a loss of 50 million (2 million USD). Finally even
the coalition partner Civic Democratic Alliance expressed fears that the
entrepreneurial activities of Miroslav Macek might threaten the entire
coalition.
55th Anniversary of the Death of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk
On Monday, September 14, the Czech premier Klaus, the Federal
premier Strasky and the last (today already former) Czechoslovak
President, Vaclav Havel, placed wreaths on the tomb of the founder of
the Czechoslovak Republic (1918) and its first president, T.G. Masaryk.
He died on the same date in 1937.
Klaus, Kalvoda and Uhde meet with delegates from the Left Bloc in the
Czech National Council
Meetings between the delegates of the strongest opposition club in
the Czech parliament, the Left Bloc (a coalition of the Communist Party
of Bohemia and Moravia and the Democratic Left of the CSFR) and the
Czech premier Vaclav Klaus were followed by similar sessions with the
chairman of the Czech government Jan Kalvoda and chairman of the Czech
National Council (the Czech parliament), Milan Uhde.
"In a number of cases we affirmed that we are in the same boat and
that there a many questions we do not want to resolve through
confrontation. Many misunderstandings must be dispelled, and I am sure
that today's meeting helped accomplish that," said permier Klaus as
cited in Mlada fronta Dnes on September 9.
The two parties have diametrically opposed views on the question of
how the federation should be dissolved (the KSCM -- Czech and Moravian
communists-- insists on a referendum, Klaus is against it and against
the secession of one of the republics) and the constitutional form of
the Czech Republic (Klaus prefers the unitary, centralized state).
Nomination of prof. Hajduk to position of the Rector of Trnava
University canceled.
On September 2, 1992 Mr. Dusan Slobodnik, Slovak minister of
education, asked Federal Prime minister, Mr. Strasky, to cancel the
nomination of prof. Hajduk to the position of the Rector of Trnava
University (TU). Mr. Hajduk was nominated by President V. Havel in May
1992. Mr. Strasky confirmed the demand of Mr. Slobodnik and the latter
asked Mr. Hajduk, the TU Rector, to quit from his position.
Minister Slobodnik nominated a new rector, prof. L.Haracha, former
employee of Ministry of Education, and removed prof. Hajduk. Carolina
evaluates this act as an example of establishment interfering into
academic enviroment.
WEATHER
Cool September weather is starting to drive out memories of this
summer's drought. The clouds give the last few tourists a nice sunset
over Hradcany and the number of Americans on Vaclavske namesti is
shrinking. Maybe the prices of beer will come down as well as the
temperatures.
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