C R O A T I A: The Art of Playing Football Saša Cvijetić The link between football and Croatian politics is not entirely metaphorical, as is shown by the events of the past few days in the Zagreb City Assembly.

U K R A I N E: Making Parliament Work Sarah Whitmore The beginning of the year saw Ukrainian parliamentary politics turn into a theatre of the absurd as referendum plans precipitated a crisis of unprecedented scale.

P O L A N D: A Smooth Sweep Wojtek Kość In November 1995, Aleksander Kwaśniewski narrowly defeated Lech Wałęsa in the second round of Poland's presidential elections. This November, the situation is quite different, and Kwasniewski, far ahead of the competition, looks sure to slide in to a second term.

B U L G A R I A: Bulgaria's Secret Židas Daskalovski the Bulgarian Constitutional Court ruled by a vote of nine to three to outlaw the ethnic Macedonian party OMO-Ilinden-PIRIN - a decision that may violate a number of basic human rights principles.

C E N T R A L  E U R O P E:
"Transitology": Global Dreams
and Post-Communist Realities
Rudolf L. Tőkés
It is a matter of record that virtually all leading transitologists discovered Eastern Europe shortly after CNN's sixty-second-crisis-analyst reporters landed there. The time has come to rethink and reconceptualize a new kind of understanding of the daunting complexities of post-Communist transitions.

Essay  of  the  Month:

On the Inside Looking Out:
Austria's New ÖVP-FPV Government,
Jörg Haider, and Europe
Lonnie Johnson
March's Essay of the Month is a revised and expanded version of Lonnie Johnson's earlier essay on Jörg Haider, Austria and the EU's over-reaction to the FPV's rise to power.

Kinoeye:

Kinoeye continues its look at the Neue deutsche Filme section of this year's Berlin International Film Festival.

CER's Regular Columnists:
ČULÍK'S CZECH REPUBLIC: President Albright? Jan Čulík Once again, there is Western media speculation that US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright may make a bid for the Czech presidency, and once again, we see how little the Western media understand what is going on in the post-Communist countries.
MIORIŢA: Petre Roman in London Catherine Lovatt On his recent visit to London, Romanian Foreign Minister Petre Roman convincingly portrayed Romania in a positive light while accepting that improvements are still necessary. However, his 'sale of Romania' left much unexplained.	BALKAN ENCOUNTER: The Expat Experts Sam Vaknin All foreign advisors belong to one of three categories: the hustlers, the bureaucrats or the corporates.

A second wave of pollution has flowed into a Central European river - this time, the Vaser, a tributary of the Tisza.

E N V I R O N M E N T: Aquatic Chernobyl Part Four: From disaster to debate Gusztáv Kosztolányi The Tisza River disaster has reached the floor of the Hungarian Parliament. Rather than cataloguing the well-known effects of the cyanide pollution, the speakers concentrated on defining what remains to be done.

R O M A N I A: Once Is Not Enough Catherine Lovatt Only six weeks after the ecologically destructive cyanide spill in Baia Mare, Romania is once again facing the humiliation of yet another environmental catastrophe.

Books and Literature

S U P P L E M E N T:
The CER Book Shop:
Books about Central and Eastern Europe
Have a look at CER's list of books on the region - all available from Amazon.com. The updated list is spread across several pages and contains many new offerings.

O n   D i s p l a y

EVENTS: Coming up in the UK Andrew James Horton Details of selected Central and East European cultural events in the UK over the next few weeks.

EVENTS: Coming up in the USA Karen M Laun Central and East European events in the United States in the coming weeks.

M   u   s   i   c

The CER Music Shop
In co-operation with Amazon.com, Central Europe Review offers you this on-line shopping supplement.