SURVEY OF CZECH PRESS by ÇTK News Agency

PRAGUE, July 19 (ÇTK) - The right-oriented +Telegraf+ writes

today on the meeting of Meçiar and Klaus that "it is difficult

to say what arguments Czech Premier used in the night's

face-to-face dialogue to convince his Slovak counterpart."

But the most probable explanation seems to lie in the fact

that Klaus succeeded with his well-known statement that he did

not want to rate statements by Slovak representatives, including

Meçiar, which were determined for the public, and not for real

political discussions," concludes the daily.

+Telegraf+ also comments on the unified position taken by

the Czech Republic and Slovakia when the final document of the

Central European Initiative (CEI) was passed. "If from the

international point of view the CEI has brought something really

positive, it is undoubtedly a marked improvement in the

sometimes shaky Czech-Slovak relations," the daily writes.

The right-oriented +Çeský deník+, writing on the

Klaus-Meçiar meeting, says that Bonn exerted big pressure on

Bratislava to agree on the creation of a classical border with

the Czech Republic.

"There is no doubt that German diplomacy had a crucial

importance for Meçiar's positive eleventh-hour approach," states

the daily.

On the situation on the Czech-Slovak border, the economic

daily +Hospodá ské noviny+ writes that it is just a matter of

speed before smugglers and forgers adapt themselves to the

fact that Czechs and Slovaks travel only with identity cards

and, in fact, wherever they want.

The daily also points to the deadlock which the Czech-Slovak

property talks have come to after the last round. The threshold

which has repeatedly been too high to cross, is, namely Slovak

debts which ensued from the division of the former

central bank and two billion crowns (65 million USD) from

turnover tax which were not transferred by Slovakia to

Czechoslovakia's budget at the close of 1992.

"The fact that the threshold was not crossed by a single

step, would probably cause heated debate in the Czech cabinet,"

comments +Hospodá ské noviny+. The business daily adds that the

ODA ministers can be expected to oppose signing a global

agreement on property settlement.

The trade union daily +Práce+ carries an interview with

Health Minister Ludęk Rubá . "I want a good and efficient method

in provision of health care. I consider waste and egalitarianism

antisocial, as it discourages people. If the steps we are

preparing are to have an adverse impact on the disadvantaged,

they will always be accompanied by steps to minimalise them,"

said Rubá .

The Christian daily +Lidová demokracie+ notes that the

miners, who under totalitarian rule became accustomed to having

an exceptional position and extraordinary salaries, now are

accepting market economy with difficulty. "But this should not

prevent the chairman of a miners' trade unions from trying to

understand the situation in a wider context, not arbitrarily

read facts out of context and not distort them," states the

daily.

The independent +Mladá fronta Dnes+ claims that when the

Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, Milan Uhde, was Minister of

Culture he turned to then Defence Minister Lubo Dobrovský to

seek support for his wife's private company. Uhde asked

Dobrovský to allocate several vacant army premises, which were

to be used by Çeská kniha company, co-owned by Uhde's wife, for

storage, reports the daily.

According to the daily, Dobrovský declared that Uhde had

turned to him as a man who had pursued the preservation of

books. "According to Dobrovský, the information of Uhde's

intervention at the time was biased," writes +Mladá fronta

Dnes+.

SURVEY OF SLOVAK PRESS by ÇTK News Agency

BRATISLAVA, July 19 (ÇTK) - The next act of the "optimistic

coalition musical," according to a commentary in the unionist

daily +Práca+, starts today in the National Council of the

Slovak Republic (parliament) between the Movement for a

Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and the Slovak National Party (SNS).

+Práca+ says that without the voices of Çernák's party (SNS),

"Meçiarians" (HZDS) are powerless in the election of top

officials to the Supreme Inspection Office (NKů).

SNS representatives will have to decide, the daily wrties,

whether to stick to agreements made while still part of the

opposition, or whether to back Meçiar's man Marián Vranka, which

would seal the coalition agreement. In both cases, the SNS

Vice-Chairman Peter Sokol stands the chance of becoming the NKů

vice-chairman. His party will choose, through its deputies',

the appropriate "side of the field" for him," +Práca+ concludes.

The former Slovak Minister of Labour and Social Affairs,

Helena Woleková, says in the +Slovenský deník+ -- a daily close

to the opposition Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) -- that

owing to the high budget deficit, she does not expect even the

most meagre old age pensions to rise this year. In the future,

all that the poorest people can hope to get from the state is a

contribution towards their rent, provided on an individual basis

by the local government's social care departments, says Woleková

in +Slovenský deník+.

The tabloid +Nový ças+ writes that the devaluation of the

Slovak crown is a litmus test expected to show the Slovak

economy's reaction to free market conditions. It is debatable,

whether any growth in exports -- the move's main aim -- will be

achieved. Owing to the existence of the European Community's

(EC) import quotas on steel, textiles and food porducts, there

is little hope that Slovakia could give its exports to the EC a

boost.

+Nový ças+ points out that up to 45 per cent of exports end

up in the Czech Republic, according to the Slovak Statistics

Office, and the devaluation's positive spinoffs will be seen,

first of all, by how Slovak goods fare in this territory.

Looking back on a meeting of the Central European

Initiative (CEI), the independent +Národná obroda+ describes it

as another chance for Hungary to give Slovakia a bad turn. It is

a positive sign, the daily writes, that even Catherine

Lalumiere, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, rejected

Hungary's "maximalist" demands. Her stand, in the daily's view,

corresponded to a European view that after learning the "Serbian

nationalist" lesson of "drastic expansion," Europe does not

want to risk another crisis like the one in the Balkans.

The push for a reunification with Hungary of areas inhabited

by ethnic Hungarians, increasingly evident in the Hungarian

diplomacy, means that Budapest's official line is not reacting

to positive signals from Slovakia. "Although their Czech card

did not turn out, they are obviously counting on other

anti-Slovak trump-cards," +Národná obroda+ writes.