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By Alan Charlish WARSAW, March 31 (Reuters) - The Hungarian forint slipped on Friday, as worries about Hungary's access to European Union funds and a larger-than-expected trade deficit weighed on sentiment. Hungary had been due to pass legislation designed to address concerns over the rule of law by the end of March, which is needed to unlock up to 15.4 billion euros ($16.76 billion) in COVID-19 recovery funds. But on Thursday officials in Brussels struck a cautious tone on whether the country had done enough to get the cash. The forint was 0.26% weaker against the euro at 381 at 0851 GMT. "In practice there is no deadline at all, it was just an agreement that they will try to find a solution by the end of the first quarter... but some of the market players have a sense that it is some kind of hard deadline," said Peter Virovacz, senior economist at ING in Budapest. Virovacz added that concerns related to this could have caused traders to close their forint positions. Zoltan Varga, an economist at brokerage Equilor, also pointed to the issue of suspended EU funds, as well as an upward revision in Hungary's January trade deficit. Meanwhile in Poland, the zloty was broadly stable at 4.6745, as investors shrugged off a decline in inflation in March. Inflation was 16.2% year on year in March according to a flash estimate from the statistics office. This was above the 15.9% forecast in analysts in a Reuters poll, but marked a declined from the February reading of 18.4% which most economists believe marked the peak of the current cycle. The Czech crown was also little changed at 23.52, after touching a three-week high against the euro on Wednesday after the central bank called market expectations of rate cuts premature. Budapest's main stock index rose 1.4%, with shares of oil and gas group MOL gaining 2%. The main index in Prague rose 0.3% while Warsaw's WIG 20 was broadly stable. The biggest gainer in Warsaw was video games company CD Projekt, which rose as much as 9.8% in early trade after the company on Thursday said it would start a marketing campaign for the highly-anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 expansion for June. CEE SNAPSHO AT MARKETS T 1051 CET CURRENC IES Latest Previou Daily Change s bid close change in 2023 EURCZK Czech EURHUF Hungary 0 0 EURPLN Polish EURRON Romanian EURHRK Croatian EURRSD Serbian 0 0 Note: calculated from 1800 daily CET change Latest Previou Daily Change s close change in 2023 .PX Prague 1341.32 1336.74 +0.34% +11.62 00 % .BUX Budapest 42177.3 41603.8 +1.38% -3.69% 7 2 .WIG20 Warsaw <.WIG20 1763.02 1763.29 -0.02% -1.62% > .BETI Buchares 12119.8 12041.5 +0.65% +3.91% t 0 0 .SBITO Ljubljan <.SBITO 1199.75 1197.21 +0.21% +14.39 P a P> % .BELEX Belgrade <.BELEX 888.49 888.41 +0.01% +7.75% 15 15> .SOFIX Sofia <.SOFIX 607.69 606.66 +0.17% +1.03% > Yield Yield Spread Daily (bid) change vs Bund change in Czech spread Republic CZ2YT= 2-year s CZ5YT= 5-year s CZ10YT s Poland PL2YT= 2-year s PL5YT= 5-year s PL10YT s FORWARD 3x6 6x9 9x12 3M interba nk Czech Hungary Poland Note: are for ask FRA prices quotes ******************************************** ****************** ($1 = 0.9191 euros) (Reporting by Alan Charlish in Warsaw and Krisztina Than in Budapest; Editing by Christina Fincher)