Hungarian Speaker of Parliament Katalin Szili said on Wednesday that she would lobby in international forums in the coming weeks to prevent controversial provisions of the newly amended Slovak State Language Act from entering into force.

Szili met with four of Hungary's parliamentary parties who agreed on a draft of a declaration demanding the withdrawal of passages from Slovakia's new law which they criticised for discriminating against minorities.

Janos Koka, parliamentary group leader of the liberal opposition Free Democrats, said the Slovak law was totally incompatible with the spirit of the European Union and the Council of Europe. "Should this legislation enter into force, Slovakia will isolate itself in both organisations," he said.

Jozsef Kozma, the Socialist deputy chairman of Parliament's foreign affairs committee, said that "voting down a minority group always demonstrates the weakness of the majority."

Mihaly Balla of the opposition Fidesz party noted that a meeting in Esztergom (N) of the two parliaments' foreign committees a few months ago had truly demonstrated how effective coordinated action of parliamentary parties could be.

Party representatives met last week and agreed to work together on voicing their criticism regarding the law adopted on June 30 and to turn to the international community in order to try to prevent it from coming into effect on September 1.

Under the amended law, the use of a minority language in official communication would be punishable -- in certain instances by a fine of up to 5,000 euros -- in towns and villages where the ethnic minority makes up less than 20 percent of the total population.

MEPs protest language law in Strasbourg

Hungarian members of the European Parliament raised their voice against the Slovak language act in a plenary session on Wednesday.

Addressing the debate over the work of the outgoing Czech EU presidency, Adam Kosa (Fidesz) said the law recently amended by the Slovak parliament seriously limited the minorities' right to use their mother tongue. He called upon the Swedish government, holding the EU's rotating presidency, to take a firm stand for the freedom of language use in Europe.

Kinga Goncz (Socialists) called the Slovak law unacceptable and totally incompatible with European values.

In a letter addressed to Slovak MEPs, Lajos Bokros (Democratic Forum) wrote that the law was "discriminatory" and it "hurts not only Hungarians, but also the spirit of European integration and the idea of democracy".