From hungary-report-owner Mon Feb 12 08:38:14 1996 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id IAA01973; Mon, 12 Feb 1996 08:38:14 -0800 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id IAA01962; Mon, 12 Feb 1996 08:37:55 -0800 Received: from jbrown@isys.hu () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hungary-report@hungary.yak.net (1960) Received: from kingzog.isys.hu (KingZog.iSYS.hu [194.24.160.4]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id IAA01952 for ; Mon, 12 Feb 1996 08:36:57 -0800 Received: from [194.24.161.32] (dialup-1-032.dial.isys.hu [194.24.161.32]) by kingzog.isys.hu (8.7.Beta.11/8.7.Beta.11) with SMTP id RAA19537 for ; Mon, 12 Feb 1996 17:36:28 +0100 (MET) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 17:36:28 +0100 (MET) X-Sender: jbrown@mail.isys.hu (Unverified) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: hungary-report@hungary.yak.net From: jbrown@isys.hu (Jennifer Brown) Subject: The Hungary Report 1.37 Sender: owner-hungary-report@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: hungary-report@hungary.yak.net ======================== The Hungary Report Direct from Budapest, every week Also available on the World Wide Web (http://www.isys.hu/hrep/) No. 1.37, February 12, 1996 ======================== SPONSORED BY: iSYS Kft., providing full Internet solutions for companies and individuals in Hungary. For further information, send e-mail to , view our World Wide Web home page (http://www.isys.hu) or call (+36-1) 266-6090. ========= CONTENTS BRIEFS Parliament debate informants bill Swedish and U.S. aircraft manufacturers woo Hungary MDF won't split at March convention Budapest to host Bosnian reconciliation conference Tuition fee compromise reached NATO provides 800 jobs in Kaposvar Poverty increased five-fold since 1989 Hungary wins OECD membership approval Moviegoers down last year Crime reaches record levels NUMBERS CRUNCHED Hungarians wanting independent currency Funds for dangerous waste problem Value of illegal drugs consumed annually in Hungary The gross wage in Hungary last year Percentage of the GDP spent on research and development FEATURE STORY Elvis lives, and he reeks of garlic PARLIAMENT WATCH Legislative steamroller revs up engines The Hungary Report is also supported in part by: MTI-Econews, a daily English-language financial news service. For online (fee-based) subscription information, contact the Internet address: . (It's not automated -- write a nice note.) ====== BRIEFS By Jennifer C. Brown Copyright (c) 1996 ------------- GENERAL NEWS Parliament debates informants bill Parliament began debating an amendment to a 1994 law on secret agents. The bill would allow a panel of six judges to continue investigating connections between current politicians and the former secret police, writes the Budapest Week. The bill would also allow citizens access to their own files compiled by the secret police starting from the late 1940s. Citizens would not have access to the names of the informants. The law prevents those who worked for the secret service under the Communist era from holding public offices. A similar proposal to amend the bill was brought up last year but the court dismissed it, saying the range of people to be investigated was too vague. The new amendment on the table would create a Historical Office that would contain files from the Division III of the old state security service. The present amendment has a list of 600 office holders to be investigated, including the president, members of parliament,government ministers, state secretaries, judges and top officials at the National Bank, Hungarian Television and Radio. If the six-member panel discovers that an official was a member of the security services, he or she must resign within 30 days or risk being publicly exposed as a former secret agent. Disagreements arose between the opposition and the coalition on amending the law during a heated debate in Parliament. The Free Democrats argued that the Historical Office should contain not only documents dealing with domestic surveillance, but also documents from military security, international espionage and counterintelligence. Socialists, meanwhile, argued that including these documents would tread upon Hungary's current surveillance operations. --------------------- BUSINESS & ECONOMICS Swedish and U.S. aircraft manufacturers woo Hungary The Ministry of Defense is courting both Swedish and U.S. fighting aircraft manufacturers for the single largest purchase in Hungary's history, reports the Budapest Business Journal. Hungary signed a letter of understanding with Swedish company Saab for about $1.3 billion in cooperation. The deal involved the sale of 30 Grippen JAS 39 aircraft. Saab's parent investor would purchase comparable goods from Hungary and Hungarian-Swedish joint ventures under the deal. But in January, the Americans stepped in peddling F-16 Falcons and other fighters with comparable functions. According to the Journal, it may not be the technology that influences the government's choice to purchase, but rather politics and financing. Sweden supports Hungary's membership in NATO and the European Union. But the Americans offer Hungary flexible financing and options to lease planes or pay over an extended period of time. The Business Journal quotes Saab's project manager for Hungary Hans Werner of accusing the Americans of trying to push outdated technology on Hungary. ----------- SHORT TAKES DEMOCRATIC FORUM (MDF) PRESIDENT IVAN SZABO AND FOUNDER Sandor Leszak announced last week that the party would not break up despite their differences, reports Magyar Nemzet. The MDF will have its national convention in March. Members will decide between Szabo and Leszak for the party's presidency. BUDAPEST WILL HOST A RECONCILIATION CONFERENCE FOR the three warring ethnic groups in Bosnia later this year. The purpose of the conference is to give Bosnians, Serbs and Croats a chance to discuss their common future. Budapest was selected because of its neutrality, writes the Budapest Week. STUDENT LEADERS AND THE EDUCATION MINISTRY HAVE COME TO AN agreement on a proposed tuition fee. Individual universities will set their own tuition fees, not to exceed HUF 2,000 (US$ 14.80). They will also provide scholarships to students with good grades who demonstrate need, reports the Budapest Sun. NATO PEACEKEEPERS HAVE EMPLOYED 800 HUNGARIAN WORKERS in the Kaposvar area, according to the Budapest Sun About 60% of them were previously registered as unemployed, 30% were considered "non-registered unemployed" and 10% quit their old jobs to work for NATO. Hungarian NATO employees earn about $2.20 an hour. A RECENT REPORT ISSUED BY THE WORLD BANK REPORT SHOWS that poverty in Hungary has jumped five times since 1989, according to Nepszabadsag. Seven years ago 1.6% of the population received an income below the minimum pension level. This figure jumped to 8.6% in 1993. The study also reveals that the percentage of impoverished Hungarians jumped to 33-40% between 1989 and 1993. Based on the report, The World Bank report proposes changes in the social safety net to help those living in poverty. HUNGARY RECENTLY RECEIVED THE THUMBS UP TO JOIN THE Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) last week. Hungary could now become a member of the organization as early as March. Membership depends on Parliament's approval of amendments to the bank secrecy act which deals with taxation. THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE GOING TO THE MOVIES DROPPED FROM 16.2 million in 1994 to 14.3 million in 1995. The American film "Die Hard with a Vengeance", was the most popular film in Hungary and was seen by over 500,000 people, according to Vilaggazdasag. Nine Hungarian films premiered last year compared to 21 in 1994. Hungary's most successful film last year was "Megint Tanu" ("Witness Again") by Peter Bacso, the sequel to the 1968 film "A Tanu" ("The Witness") which dealt with Hungary's early Communist years. Nearly 79,000 people saw that film. 1995 WAS A RECORD YEAR FOR CRIME, ACCORDING TO the National Police, writes Magyar Hirlap. Figures show that there were 290 homicides last year, 20 less than in 1994. But crimes involving drugs rose by nearly 68%, to 429 cases. Some 12,130 cars were stolen last year, up 20% from 1994. There was a 5% increase in break-ins and white collar crimes were up three-fold, causing causing losses of Ft 11.7 billion, a 131% increase. ------------------ NUMBERS CRUNCHED * Percentage of Hungarians who believe Hungary should retain its own currency if it joins the European Union (Szonda Ipsos): 28% * Amount of money the government has allocated for the country's dangerous waste problems (Budapest Week): Ft 5 billion. * Fees the Hungarian police are charging drunks: Ft 200 per kilometer for a ride to the hospital, Ft 1,500 for the police escort and Ft 1,500 to clean the police vehicle. * Value of illegal drugs consumed annually in Hungary (The Budapest Sun): $159 million * The gross wage in Hungary in 1995: (The Budapest Sun): $360 * Percentage of the GDP spent on research and development in Hungary last year (the Hungarian Association for Innovation): 0.7% -------------- EXCHANGE RATE (National Bank of Hungary) US dollar - 145.02 (buying), 146.31 (selling) Deutschemark - 97.94 (buying), 98.85 (selling) ============= FEATURE STORY Elvis lives ... and he reeks of garlic by John Nadler Copyright (c) 1996 Fans of Elvis take heart. The King of Rock 'n Roll is not dead. But contrary to rumor and tabloid dispatch, Elvis Aaron Presley is neither an aging recluse in a Montana cabin, nor sipping absinthe with Jim Morrison in a Paris cafe. The King is lithe, alive, and in Hungary ... in song, in ballet, and in spirit. A generation after Presley's premature death, Elvis still reigns on the Carpathian basin where a fascination with the King's life, myth, and music is enduring in popular culture. 'Elvis: The Rock Ballet,' a tribute in dance to Presley's life and legacy, was one of most popular musicals to open at the Madach theater, one of Budapest's top stage venues. True to Hungary's intimacy with the King, the ballet was lovingly scored, choreographed, and performed exclusively by Magyars. But why, you ask? Why has Elvis been resurrected in Hungary, a place as far away from Presley's spiritual home of Graceland as Nepal? The answer: Although the King's home was Tennessee, Presley's legend, songs, and style has been a fixture of Hungary's underground culture for decades. Even during this country's most austere communist years, Elvis has been perfectly at home on the Hungarian puszta. "In the past, young people [in Hungary] came together and listened to Elvis music like a church service," said Hungarian Endre Barcs, a life-time Presley fan and the musical director of the rock ballet. "It was much more than music for us. It was much more than rock 'n roll. It was religion and church." Since the 1950s when Elvis first shook the American music scene, Presley's songs crossed into the Iron Curtain via Radio Luxembourg and Radio Free Europe as stealthily as U-2 spy planes. Declared ballet spokesperson Aniko Navai: "In the 1950s and 1960s, Elvis for Hungarians was forbidden fruit... So he now represents a bit of nostalgia for us." Nostalgia that is expressed in monuments most bizarre. Near the Hungarian city of Gyor, tourists can stop at 'Elvis Park', a road-side attraction which boasts a restaurant and cafe inside a grounded duplicate of the 'Lisa-Marie', Presley's personal airplane named of course after his only daughter. Hungarian devotees have not only made icons of Presley's possessions, many have modeled themselves after the King. Laszlo Komar is a Hungarian recording artist for the local Hungaroton label, and an Elvis impersonator who has sold well over 1 million records in Hungarian, and has appeared on Music Television (MTV). Komar's oeuvre includes 11 LPs, three of which are Elvis memorial albums that are ghostly reminiscent of the King, save the lyrics which are not in English. "The original idea was to sing the songs in English, but [my partner] said, 'If you sing them in Hungarian, everybody can love the songs," said Komar. "If I were conceited, I'd say that the records sound like Elvis singing in Hungarian." Such claims are no surprise to Komar's fans. This blond impersonator, who looks nothing like Presley and refuses to wear studded sequins or Elvis's trademark duck-tail hair style, has instead focused his energies on mimicking -- down to the most minute detail -- the King's original musical tracks, even including in his renditions mistakes and sour notes that appear on Elvis's 'live' concert albums. Komar's 'Elvis persona' did not fully emerge -- officially, at least -- until 1981, four years after Presley's death from a drug overdose. And his three Elvis memorial albums did not hit record stores until 1984, 1987, and 1993 respectively. But Komar's delay in embracing the music of the King did not reflect his reticence, but rather the politics of the times. Restrictions under Hungary's previous communist regime made official tributes to Elvis impossible until the early 1980s. According to party ideologues, Presley personified all that was decadent in western culture. Explained Barcs: "During the 1950s and 1960s... Young people were told [rock n' roll] was rotten, and the evil god of rock music was Elvis Presley. It was forbidden to play his music." According to journalist and Presley fan Laszlo Jakabfi, the Elvis movement in Hungary informally began in 1957. Unable to meet publicly to listen to Presley records and radio shows, thousands of teenagers met in private -- sometimes late at night -- to tune into western radio stations and listen to the King's addictive voice. These clandestine meetings were the precursor to the Elvis fan club which was not officially formed in Hungary until 1982, the beginning of Hungary's political reform movement. And even then, political oppression made it necessary to list the club under the auspices of a Communist Youth League. But despite this odious association, youth-league members kept their priorities in order. After the club's launch, two large portraits hung side-by-side in its headquarters: one of Lenin, and one Elvis. From the beginning, membership in Hungary's Elvis fan club, 400 at its peak, spanned several generations, and included teenagers, middle-aged professionals, and elderly ladies. According to founding member Jakabfi, the young, lacking the money to clothe themselves like their idol, wore long sideburns and combed their locks like the King. After the club's inception, members met monthly to socialize, talk about their hero, and dance to Presley's hits. During the waning years of the Cold War, they used 'Elvis' as a bizarre good-will conduit linking the east and west. During the 1980s, the Hungarian chapter corresponded with the UK Elvis fan club based in Leicester, England and British representatives made several trips to Budapest before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, bringing on one visit a print of the first Elvis movie -- 'Jailhouse Rock' -- to be screened in Hungary. Hungarian TV did not show its first Elvis flick -- 'Blue Hawaii' -- until 1987. Which raises an obvious question: How could Hungarians have harbored such passion for Presely, even after the performer's death in 1977, without once having seen him in action? On one level, Presley's appeal was political. "Elvis's music represented a kind of rebellion against the communist regime," said Jakabfi, a reporter with the Budapest newspaper the 'Daily News'. More importantly, Presley appeared to embody a hope and an ideal -- eastern Europe's post-WWII vision of the west and America. "Elvis represented richness, happiness, joyfulness, and youth," added Barcs. This ideal held special significance during the 1950s, the dark Stalinist period of Hungary's communist history, when Presley fans met clandestinely to listen to bootleg records that had been smuggled into the country by parents and friends able to travel abroad. "You can't imagine it from the perspective of the 1990s, but back then it was a special thing to have an Elvis album or single," said Jakabfi. Now of course it is different. Communism is history in Hungary, and devotion to the King is no longer an act of political and social defiance. Moreover, after the melting of the Iron Curtain five years ago a plethora of moderns bands, music styles, and artists have been bombarding Hungary's youth via compact discs, and cassettes, and satellite TV. Still Presley enjoys an enthusiastic following among generations born after his death. Mused Barc: "Somehow young people are finding Elvis now." Melinda Szente, 16, heard about Elvis through her mother's stories of secret late night gatherings around a radio in the 1960s. "I was interested in why everyone like my mom talked about him so much," said Szente. "I found some of his tapes here at home and I really started to like him." "Rock 'n roll is a pretty old thing," she added. "Nowadays you can't listen to the original music on radio or TV. That's why I like Elvis. He was the original." Young people like Szente acknowledge that most music found on MTV today is a product of Presley's legacy. Said one young fan in Budapest: "I thank god Elvis existed because now we have rock 'n roll." But why is Elvis Hungary's main icon of pristine rock music? Why not other pioneers like the Beatles or Cliff Richard? According to Barcs, who once translated a book into Hungarian about people who saw heavenly visions of Elvis during near-death experiences, the mystique of Presley's premature death in 1977 and his status as the father of rock 'n roll gives the singer an almost religious importance. "The economic situation in Hungary is very shaky," Barcs explained. "Young people don't know if they'll ever get a job. They want stability. They are looking for a idol who is eternal. That is why they are discovering Elvis again." Which proves that in Eastern Europe, despite the apologies of doubters and nay sayers, the King will always live on. =============== Parliament Watch By Tibor Vidos Copyright (c) 1996 Parliament is back in session, yes, the legislative steamroller is moving forward again. According to the government's intentions, Parliament will have to debate 67 new or amended acts between February and June. So once again, it seems that legislators will have to work under enormous time pressure. Though most of the items on the agenda are small amendments, quite a number of economically significant bills are lined up as well. A word of caution, before indulging in reading the list: no legislative agenda has been adhered to during the short history of Hungarian Democracy. February will be a warming up period, with mostly amendments debated and the Public Warehousing Bill being the only major piece of legislation to discuss. In March Parliament will concentrate on the environment, debating the Environmental Protection Bill, Hunting Bill and Forestry Bill. April will be the banking month of the year, with new laws about banking and about securities and bills introducing housing savings banks and mortgage institutions to the Hungarian financial market. In May a new law regulating everything related to building and construction is supposed to be passed, followed by the National Conservation Act, to protect historic monuments. This month will be dear to animal rights activist as well, with Parliament debating the Animal Protection Bill. Finally in June, the House is supposed to crown its session with the Great Public Spending Reform: social security and pensions will be re-regulated in all aspects. The Advertising Bill will only be the icing on the cake at the break of Summer. Quite impressive isn't it? Especially if bills will not have to be amended immediately following their approval, as is the case with the 1996 Personal Income Tax Act. The regulation that was passed by the Socialists alone - the Free Democrat faction but its ministers voted against it - has been interpreted by most employers in a way that required them to deduct 40% income tax from all employees declaring a single forint income from outside the company, instead of deducting the percentage that would be due according to the real figures. This measure, specially unfavorable to low and middle income earners caused a huge row, forcing the Prime Minister to a public apology and to the hasty publication of all sorts of guidelines and explanations how the tax law should really be implemented. The Finance Minister has been instructed by the government to issue a special decree and to introduce an amendment to the House as soon as possible. In the meantime Hungary passed the last hurdles of becoming a member of OECD, the association of the most developed countries. I wonder, are we really so well developed ? =========== FINAL BLURB The Hungary Report is free to readers. To subscribe, send an email message to the following Internet address: hungary-report-request@hungary.yak.net containing (in the body of the message, not in the headers) the single word subscribe Conversely, to stop receiving Hungary Report, simply send to the same address (in the body of the message) the single word unsubscribe Please note: all mailing lists suffer from frequent "error" addresses. If we have problems with sending to your address more than one week in a row, we will remove you from the list. If you haven't received the report for more than one week, feel free to inquire directly to Steven Carlson (but please wait for at least a week, as we're also just famously late in getting the thing out sometimes : ) * * * Back issues of The Hungary Report are available on the World-Wide Web http://www.isys.hu/hrep/ and via FTP ftp://ftp.isys.hu/pub/hrep/ * * * The entire contents of The Hungary Report are copyrighted by the authors. Permission is granted for not-for-profit, electronic redistribution and storage of the material. If readers redistribute any part of The Hungary Report by itself, PLEASE RESPECT AUTHORS' BY-LINES and copyright notices. Reprinting and resale of the material is strictly prohibited without explicit prior consent by the authors. Please contact the authors directly by email to inquire about resale rights. * * * For information on becoming a corporate sponsor of The Hungary Report, contact Steve Carlson by email. Feedback is welcome. Rick E. Bruner, Creator <74774.2442@compuserve.com> Steven Carlson, Publisher Jennifer C. Brown, Editor Tibor Vidos, Parliament Watch Attila Beno, Magyar Net Watch * * * For its briefs, The Hungary Report regularly consults the news sources listed below -- for information about subscriptions, contact them by email: The Budapest Business Journal <100263.213@compuserve.com> & Budapest Sun <100275.456@compuserve.com> Budapest Week <100324.141@compuserve.com> Central Europe Today (free online) , as well as most Hungarian-language media (e-mail addresses to come). ================= END TRANSMISSION