BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia's leading dailies launched a protest campaign against a government plan to slap higher value added tax on newspapers with more than 10 percent advertising content. The newspapers moved top stories to their inside pages and cleared space to publish a protest statement by the Association of Newspaper Publishers on page one. "We call on parliament to reject the proposal, which is economically implausible and politically unjustifiable," it said. Publishers and the political opposition have called the tax rise an attack on Slovakia's mainly anti-government press, which they say would be unable to bear the financial impact. Parliament is to discuss the proposal next week. The papers said blank spaces on their front pages would increase daily until the parliament session, when the cover would be completely blank. "The dailies will publish blank pages next Tuesday and Wednesday, the days when the parliament...should decide on the government proposal," Alexej Fulmek, director of publishing company VMV, told our daily. Some publishers called for a boycott of pro-government media, which they allege are indirectly subsidised by the state and will therefore be unaffected by the tax increase. "The opposition parties should call on citizens to boycott the ruling power's propaganda...by refusing to pay licence fees to Slovak Television which has been spreading it (propaganda)," said Ivan Šimko, deputy chairman of the opposition Christian Democratic Movement. Under the latest proposal, value added tax will rise to 23 from six percent on newspapers with more than 10 percent advertising content. The Finance Ministry had originally proposed increasing VAT on papers with at least 50 percent adverts, which, it said, would be compatible with European Union legislation. But this was re-drafted by the cabinet. Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar's government announced in 1995 a substantial VAT increase on wholly or partly foreign-owned newspapers. The move caused a general protest by all independent Slovak media, which appeared with blank front pages the day after the move was announced. The government withdrew the proposal.