The two junior members of the governing coalition, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and the Slovak National Party (SNS), have both rejected Prime Minister Robert Fico’s proposal to resolve the dispute about how geographical names should be written in textbooks for pupils from ethnic minorities.
Neither of the two parties intends to support the amending proposal from Fico’s Smer party to the Education Act, according to which textbooks should contain geographical names in Hungarian, followed by their equivalents in Slovak. HZDS are insisting on only Slovak names, while SNS leader Ján Slota told the SITA newswire that his party does not plan to vote for Smer proposal either.
"Prime Minister Fico announced that everybody would vote for himself or herself," said Slota. He did not say what the SNS would do if Smer adopts the change with help from the opposition. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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