Prime Minister Robert Fico has again promised, this time at a cabinet meeting in Komárno, southern Slovakia, that an ongoing problem with textbooks for ethnic Hungarian schools in Slovakia will be resolved.
The dispute arose over Hungarian-language school textbooks which used Slovak place-names in the text rather than their Hungarian equivalents. Fico said that each geographical term in the textbook in Hungarian must be followed by its equivalent in Slovak.
An amendment to the education law, tailored by the ethnic Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK), currently before parliament, is unacceptable, said Fico, as it requires geographical names to be printed exclusively in the minority language.
However, the prime minister said he is happy that the amendment has opened discussion on the topic. He said that the SMK realises that parliament cannot approve an amendment allowing geographical names only in Hungarian. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
