Külpolitika - A Magyar Külügyi Intézet elméleti-politikai folyóirata - 1986 (13. évfolyam)
1986 / 1. szám - KÖNYVEKRŐL - A külpolitika 1985. évi tartalommutatója
rablc international respect. World public opinion accompanied and watched with sympathy the reconstruction work of an unprecedented pace accomplished by Poland that lost 40 per cent of her national wealth and also the enormous financial and intellectual advance achieved by the Polish society through socialism. Due to comparatively quick solution internally and to the international relations ot the given periods, neither detours nor crises occurring in the course of building socialism did affect Polnad’s international positions. Poland has been playing an active and initiative role in the coordinated foreign policy ot the socialist countries in the international arena even in the period ot- internal difficulties mentioned above. Thus, for example, hardly a year after the 1956 events, foreign minister Rapacki submitted a proposal for the establishment of a nuclear free zone in Europe or, hardly a tew weeks before the December 1970 worker’s demonstrations- in Gdansk, the Polish-GFR agreement of historical significance was signed. By the early 1980s however, there had been qualitative changes in the situation. In short, there developed a crisis in Poland that has been deeper, more.intensive and more prolonged than ever before and this coincided with , the use of the policy of force by a big power, i. e. by the United States that had been directed at destabilizing the socialist countries. The serious faltering of Poland’s internal situation unavoidably and directly affected the international, first of all the European situation but increased tensions also on the international scale. Since the summer of 1980, the foreign policy activity of the Polish People’s Republic focussed on safeguarding the country’s international respect and its established system of relations, on maintaining its diplomatic activity and on restraining the international consequences caused by tensions in the international situation. Poland travelled a long path under complex international and internal conditions until it arrived from the declaration of the state of emergency to the successful parliamentary elections. The major events of the path travelled are known: new trade union law, the birth of PRON (Patriotic Movement of National Revival), the suspension and later the - lifting of the state of emergency, wide-ranging amnesty, council and later parliamentary elections. Maybe less spectacular but similarly expressive is the development in Poland’s international relations between December 1981 and the end of 1985, i. e. between the gripping international isolation and a trip to New York and an address delivered at the UN anniversary session by first secretary and premier Wojcieh Jaruzelski. Parallel with the advancement of internal consolidation, Poland’s international positions have considerably improved; the policy of isolation turned out to bea failure and there started the process of regaining the country’s international respect. < . István Magas The budgetary policy of the federal administration of the United States The clashes between the Congress and the President of the United States over the adoption and enactment of the annual budget are remarkable events in the life of the United States, year after year. By our days,, when the country’s budget is reaching new and new records and the deficit alone approaches the zoo milliard dollar mark, this process has become especially significant. The study, presenting the tradition of budget debates, already several centuries old, gives and analysis of the motives and interests that are playing a leading role in the process of legislation. Private and public rights, equity, economic efficiency as well as the contrast between the ability of getting hold of federal financial means or the lack of this ability, are presenting a special cross- section of these debates. The excessive centralization of power on a federal level (and of the financial'means in this context) is the source of great troubles in the United States with a federalist form of constitution, since with the exception of national defence tasks, one can hardly find any such fields where the individual member states would not be as circumspect or as effective in taking measures and in managing the financial affairs of the community as officials in Washington. The size of the budget deficit is the source VIII
