RPT-Slovakia softens national pride law after outcry

                                
   (Repeats story from late Tuesday)
                                
* Original law mandated playing anthem weekly, oaths to state
                                
* New law softens "patriotic" provisions to defuse protests
                                
 
                                
 By Martin Santa
                                
 BRATISLAVA, April 27 (Reuters) - Slovakia's parliament on
Tuesday passed a softened version of legislation meant to boost
national pride, dropping clauses that raised an outcry in a
central European nation with just 17 years of independence.
                                
 The law's original incarnation, requiring schools to play
the national anthem every week and public employees to take an
oath to the state, sent hundreds of teachers and students into
the streets in a rare protest in March.
                                
 They asserted that it was not possible to legislate
patriotism and love for one's country, and that public money
should be spent on renovating school premises rather than on
flags and copies of the constitution.
                                
 To calm the storm, President Ivan Gasparovic returned the
law to parliament where Prime Minister Robert Fico's left-wing
SMER party tweaked it to require schools to play the national
anthem only at the start of the academic year.
                                
 Civil servants will also not be requested to swear
allegiance to the state when when taking up a job.
                                
 The rejigged legislation still instructs all public offices
to increase the use of state symbols, such as the flag, text of
the constitution and the anthem.
                                
 This is little different from current practice and an easy
retreat for Fico from the original law, which was drafted by his
coalition partner, the nationalist Slovak National Party, and
only half-heartedly backed by SMER.
                                
 Opinion polls show SMER poised to win the next parliamentary
election in June and be able to govern either with some of
Fico's current partners or one of the opposition parties.
                                
 The legislative dispute illustrated how national identity
has become an election issue in a country at odds with its
former ruler, Hungary, over the treatment of the ethnic
Hungarian minority living in Slovakia.
                                
 Slovakia adopted a new language law last year stipulating
that only Slovak may be used in most public offices and
institutions, triggering protests in Hungary over fears the move
aimed to suppress ethnic Hungarian culture in Slovakia.
                                
 The 56-nation Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe, however, found nothing wrong with the law.
                                
 (Reporting by Martin Santa; Editing by Mark Heinrich)