ACCESSION NUMBER:329623
FILE ID:EUR310
DATE:03/02/94
TITLE:NATO: A NEEDED ANCHOR FOR EASTERN, CENTRAL EUROPE (03/02/94)
TEXT:*94030210.EUR
*EUR310   03/02/94 *

NATO: A NEEDED ANCHOR FOR EASTERN, CENTRAL EUROPE
(Hungarian Foreign Minister Jeszenszky at CSIS)  (410)
By Jim Shevis
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- Hungarian Foreign Minister Geza Jeszenszky says the former
communist nations of Eastern and Central Europe need an anchor in today's
unstable world, and they feel that only NATO can be that anchor.

Partnership for Peace may have seemed disappointing for some Central
Europeans at first, particularly the Poles and Czechs, Jeszenszky told a
large gathering of the international community here March 1.  "But Hungary
-- and later everybody else -- still welcomed it nevertheless."

"It is more than the best available: it is an effort to bring in Russia, to
make the world a really safe place, where we can finally concentrate on the
economy, on the environment and on our mental health."

Partnership for Peace is the Clinton administration's plan -- adopted at the
January NATO summit meeting -- for limited participation in the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization by the new democracies of Eastern and Central
Europe.

Jeszenszky noted that the former communist countries are at a different
stage in their transition to democratic capitalism, "but all of them need
internal security and stability."

"Prosperity was the most successful weapon of the West during the Cold War,"
he said.  "It won over the citizens of the communist countries; even their
1eaders became keen on Western contacts and department stores," he said.

"I don't have to tell you of the merits of NATO," Jeszenszky told his Center
for Strategic and International Studies audience.

"As a Hungarian who grew up in the Cold War, I can assure you that even as a
child I looked at NATO as a ray of hope that could one day open up the
possibility of bringing democracy to western and Central Europe."

Jeszenszky, a Fulbright visiting professor at the University of California
at Santa Barbara in the mid-'80s, said he hoped that full membership would
become available to Eastern and Central Europe more quickly.

"Even in the most advanced countries like Hungary, it would take at least
five years to become a full member of the European Union," he said.  "In
the really eastern part of Europe, the process will take a significantly
longer time."

Hungary has already signed an instrument of intent to become a peace
partner.  As a Partnership for Peace participant, a country must show its
commitment to democratic principles and a market-economy system.

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