Szecseny, Hungary  - Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai and his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico on Thursday issued an 11-point joint government statement of intent that aims to thaw increasingly frosty relations between their countries.

The document calls for setting up intergovernmental committees and civic organizations to improve relations.

However, despite much talk of cooperation and shared goals, Fico stood his ground and refused to countenance any changes to a Slovak state language act that is one of the main sources of tension.

"Not a single paragraph needs to be changed in the Act," Fico told reporters after an hour-long meeting with Bajnai near the Slovak border in Hungary.

Fico repeatedly referred to the initial opinion of the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities, Knut Vollebaek, who found the law to be broadly in line with international norms.

Fico slammed media reports that individual ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia could be punished for using Hungarian in their day-to-day lives as "misinformation" and "lies".

The Hungarian Prime Minister struck a conciliatory tone, saying it was not the time or place to enter into discussions of legal technicalities. "That's why we have experts," he said.

Bajnai said the real test of the new "road map" for cooperation that Hungary has drawn up with Slovakia will be how the latter acts over the coming months.

"We will see if anyone has been sanctioned (for using Hungarian) in a year's time," Bajnai said.

Relations have grown increasingly frosty in recent months as Slovakia pushed ahead with legislation that it says is aimed at safeguarding the Slovak language, but which opponents fear could be used to restrict the use of minority languages in public life.

Many of the half million Hungarian speakers that make up ten per cent of Slovakia's population feel that the new language law deliberately discriminates against them.

The fate of the sizable Hungarian minorities in neighbouring countries - a legacy of peace settlements imposed after the First World War - is a hot political issue in Hungary. It is played on by politicians, particularly those on the far right, which has gained significant ground in recent years.

Diplomatic relations between the two European Union states reached a nadir on August 21 when Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom was turned back at the border as he travelled to attend a statue unveiling in a majority ethnic Hungarian town in southern Slovakia.

On this subject, Fico did not issue the apology that many in Hungary had hoped for. Instead, in point three of the joint government statement, Slovakia described the incident as "unfortunate". Both governments agreed to the principle of the free movement of people within the European Union.

Over 10,000 attended a protest in the majority Hungarian town of Dunajska Streda in southern Slovakia on 1 September when the Slovak language law came into effect.

The legislation can, in theory, be used to penalise the use of Hungarian in official paperwork in parts of Slovakia where less than one in five of the population speaks the language.

Widely reported clauses, such as the rule that public monuments must bear Slovak text that is more prominent than the Hungarian, have caused anger in Hungary as well as among ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia.

Transgressions of the law can, in principle, be punished by fines of up to 5,000 euros, and Vollebaek has expressed reservations over the wording of this part of the legislation.

Slovak-Hungarian relations have steadily worsened since the right wing Slovak National Party joined Slovakia's coalition government in 2006.

In a meeting last November with the former Hungarian prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, an unyielding Fico accused Hungary of "exporting fascism" to Slovakia in the form of radical groups such as the paramilitary nationalist "Hungarian Guard".

This time, Bajnai and Fico agreed on the need to cooperate in curtailing the activities of nationalist extremists at home.

The Hungarian premier spoke of the importance of focusing on pressing governmental matters such as the economic crisis and mass job losses rather than getting mired in nationalist disputes that EU membership should have made superfluous.

"Viewed from Europe, it is like watching two kids squabbling in a sandpit then crying to the nurse," Bajnai said.

"Maybe you expected some sort of scandal here, or that we would stand here afterwards with long faces," Fico told reporters.

"I am very satisfied with the meeting," the Slovak prime minister said before once again thanking his Hungarian counterpart for the invitation to Hungary. Fico invited Bajnai to Slovakia "any time, any place" he chooses.

With the key legislation remaining on Slovakia's statute books, the question remains of whether many ethnic Hungarians in the mountainous Central European country, not to mention the more centre- right opposition in Hungary that looks set to assume power in general elections scheduled for the spring, will share Fico's satisfaction. dpa