(dpa) - Slovakia on Thursday became the ninth European Union nation to ratify the EU's reform treaty after the government won over lawmakers of the country's ethnic Hungarian minority.
The shift allowed left-leaning Prime Minister Robert Fico's coalition to win the parliamentary vote on the Lisbon Treaty, 103-5.
The treaty passed when the ethnic Hungarian lawmakers broke ranks with the rest of the opposition, which had blocked ratification to press Fico into changing a highly disputed new press law.
Fico's coalition holds 85 seats and needed to win over at least five opposition members to ratify the December 2007 pact to overhaul institutions in an enlarged 27-member EU.