Hungary to Draft Reforms To Boost Flagging Economy

Hungary, the East Bloc’s most market-oriented country, will draft a reform program to revive its flagging economy, but any changes in the Communist Party hierarchy will have to come later, propaganda chief Janos Berecz said Friday.

Speaking after a Central Committee meeting that brought speculation about imminent changes at the top of the party, Berecz said that businesses would be given a freer hand over their work forces and wage policy.

“Personnel questions were not on the agenda,” he told a news conference.

Berecz said details of the reforms would be presented to the winter session of Parliament next month.

“We will also have to think of the reform of political institutions,” he said, without making clear when such reforms might take place. “The party will, in the future, not be able to work as it has so far.

Many Western journalists had traveled to Budapest for the news conference, the first of its kind by a Central Committee member, expecting an announcement of major Politburo changes.

Rumors abounded that Budapest Communist Party chief Karoly Grosz might be promoted to assistant party general secretary and hence heir-apparent to 74-year-old leader Janos Kadar. There was even speculation that Kadar himself was about to go.