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Confident move to the top of the queue
 It's official. Hungary, which has always looked set to be in the first wave of central and eastern European countries to join the European Union, has been placed in the very front rank of accession countries. The European Commission report on candidate countries, due to be endorsed at the Helsinki summit on December 10 and 11, named Hungary as the country likely to join the EU first, alongside Poland, and ahead of the Czech Republic and Slovenia. ...more
ECONOMIC GROWTH:
Strong showing routs doubters
For the moment the doubters have been routed, as the Hungarian economy prepares to enter the new millennium in better shape than many financial analysts dared to hope in the early months of the year. Concern that the earlier twin threats to Hungarian economic progress of rising deficits in the government budget and in the current account could once again undermine the country's performance has proved unfounded. ...more
TELECOMMUNICATIONS:
New services ring changes
Mobile telecoms operators in Hungary believe that the market is entering a period of explosive growth helped by the entry of a third operator and the rapid introduction of new services. The price of the entry ticket has also risen sharply. Vodafone AirTouch and its partners in the Primatel consortium - RWE, the German electricity utility, and the local groups Antenna Hungaria and Magyar Posta - paid Ft48bn ($202m) in October to acquire the third mobile phone licence in Hungary. ...more
GOVERNMENT:
Battles play on in next chapter
Peter Gottfried, head of the European Union integration department at Hungary's foreign ministry, talks precisely and earnestly about the niceties of Hungary's EU accession. His conversation is full of talk of opening chapters, negotiating them and provisional closing. He is spearheading what is probably the most successful drive in central and eastern Europe towards EU membership. ...more
HEALTH:
Chronic ills plague system
When György Berecz, clinical director of Debrecen's Gyula Kenezy Hospital, was planning a new psychiatric unit, Hungary's central government told him it should accommodate 200 patients. Then, when the building was finished a few months ago, the National Health Insurance Fund told him it could fund only 120 of the places. ...more
AGRICULTURE:
Sacred cows are being herded away
A friendly-looking cow smiles from the screen of the milking parlour computer. Through a glass panel, 24 real-life cows patiently file out after milking, their milk stored in two huge cooling vats and details of their yield safely stored in the computer. ...more
TRANSPORT:
Links are key to opportunities
Transport stories in Hungary this year have not made good reading.True, Budapest saw the new year in with a gleaming new passenger terminal at Ferihegy airport. But Nato action this summer in Yugoslavia blocked the Danube, crippling Mahart, the state-owned shipping company, and thwarting plans to improve waterway navigation. ...more
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