Prague - Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico warned Saturday that relations with neighbouring Hungary may further deteriorate with Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's planned resignation.

Fico said that a victory by the "anti-Slovak" right-wing Fidesz party in a potential early general election raised worries in Slovakia.

Budapest - Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said on Saturday he will step down from office, calling for a new government with a new leader to tackle Hungary's economic crisis.

At a congress of his Hungarian Socialist Party in Budapest, the deeply unpopular premier spoke of the need for a wider social consensus to tackle the crisis.

"I hope I am the only obstacle to this - and if I am, then I will now remove that obstacle," Gyurcsany said.

Brussels  - The European Union should ease its rules to allow new members to swap their national currency for the euro more rapidly, Hungary's prime minister said Tuesday.

"The best protection against foreign-exchange problems is to join the eurozone ... We should see how the steps towards the euro could be made quicker," Ferenc Gyurcsany told journalists in Brussels.

In particular, countries which have met the EU's strict rules on inflation and budget discipline should be allowed to join the single currency without having to spend two years in the preparatory Exchange Rate Mechanism 2 (ERM 2), he said.

Budapest  - Hungary's Prime Minister vowed on Monday to double power production at his country's sole nuclear power plant, in the wake of January's gas spat between Russia and Ukraine.

Ferenc Gyurcsany cited improving Hungary's energy security situation as he urged lawmakers in the Budapest parliament to back his scheme to expand the plant at Paks, the country's only nuclear reactor, this year.

Analysts said the expansion could only be funded by foreign investors, as the government is currently in dire financial straits.

Budapest  - Hungary's socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany reacted angrily on Tuesday to comments made in an interview in the UK Financial Times newspaper by his arch rival, the centre- right opposition leader Viktor Orban.

Orban accused the Hungarian government of wasting the opportunity to use the 25-billion-dollar rescue loan granted by the International Monetary Fund, the EU and the World Bank last October.

Budapest  - Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany on Monday expressed concern over the ongoing rapid weakening of Hungary's currency, the forint, after signalling that euro adoption is now a matter of urgency.

"The government is distinctly worried by the rapid fall in the value of the forint, and the fact that it is very difficult for businesses and individuals to get credit from banks," Gyurcsany said on Monday.