News, Notices

Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Tanja Fajon met with representatives of the Slovenian national minority in Italy to exchange information and views on current issues relating to the minority, ahead of the visit by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Republic, Antonio Tajani, to Slovenia on Friday, 17 March. The meeting was also attended by Minister for Slovenians Abroad Matej Arčon.

Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Tanja Fajon handed over two Ljubljana Passenger Transport buses, which the Municipality of Ljubljana donated to Ukraine, to the Ambassador of Ukraine to the Republic of Slovenia, Andriy Taran. “Today we continue our assistance to Ukraine, this time, too, supporting the most vulnerable in the war – children and young people –, so that they can get to school more safely in these difficult circumstances.”

In an effort to adopt balanced and sustainable systemic measures, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia, Robert Golob, established the Strategic Council for Macroeconomic Issues, which held its inaugural meeting today.

At the meetings of the Government committees, the Government responded to the adopted conclusions of the National Council on the issue of the growing scope of environmentally sensitive areas of permanent grassland, included in the Development Programmes Plan for 2023-2026 a new project titled Construction of the central kitchen in the Nova Gorica General Hospital and increased the value of the project titled Logistics Centre of the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ).

In the framework of the quadrilateral meeting between Slovenia, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, Acting Director-General of the Directorate for International Law and Protection of Interests, Dr Marko Rakovec, hosted the meeting of legal advisers. This was the first meeting at the level of legal advisers in the quadrilateral format, which has been held at deputy foreign ministers level since 2011.

Prime Minister Robert Golob hosted the fifth meeting of coalition deputies and Government representatives at Brdo pri Kranju. The coalition continued the discussion on important systemic changes that it has set to implement in this term of office.

Minister Dr Emilija Stojmenova Duh opened her chairmanship of the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, the most important global event on the impact of information and communication technologies on the development of society.

The Ministry of Finance has conducted an analysis and completed the groundwork for tax system reorganisation in order to make it more transparent, simple and balanced. We also wish to raise awareness about the need for a new social consensus regarding the reform package and the level of prosperity we are aiming for.

At today's correspondence session, the Government adopted a bill on amendments to the Employment, Self-employment and Work of Foreigners Act and will send it to the National Assembly for consideration under fast-track procedure.

On 13 March, Prime Minister Dr Robert Golob paid an official bilateral visit to Sarajevo. The Prime Minister’s visit follows the European Council’s decision in December to grant Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) candidate status for membership of the European Union. It was Slovenia, including Prime Minister Golob, which actively endeavoured to confirm the geostrategic decision of the European Council last year.

On 2 March 2023 Ambassador Barbara Sušnik presented her credentials to the to the president of Cape Verde.

The last working day of the Consular section of the Embassy of the Republic in Slovenia in Cairo before the holiday season will be Thursday, 13 April 2023.

On 12 March 2023 the conversation between the Slovenian curator and director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Zdenka Badovinac, and the director of the Inside-out Museum in Beijing, Carol Yinghua Lu, took place online. The event was co-organized by the Embassy of Slovenia in Beijing and the Inside-out Art Museum in Beijing.

On 11 March 2023, in the conference room of the museum Inside-out in Beijing, the second of the Beijing Conversations took place, between Aleksandra Vajd, Slovenian photographer and professor of photography, and Zhou Dengyan, the photography historian on the topic of "Rethinking Photography as a Medium in the Age of Uncertainties."

The Prime Minister, Dr Robert Golob, received representatives of the Glas ljudstva network and listened to their proposals for urgent intervention in the field of health care.

We remove administrative obstacles and speed up the procedures for issuing and serving residence permits and registration certificates. We reintroduce access to Slovenian language courses for all categories of foreigners.

The Justice and Home Affairs Council spent the morning part of the session discussing the situation in the Schengen area.

Acting Director-General of the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid Edvin Skrt attended an informal meeting of EU development ministers in Stockholm to discuss global health in the light of the implementation of the new EU Global Health Strategy, the situation in Ukraine, with a focus on its reconstruction, and the reform of international development banks.

At today’s session, the Government adopted a proposal for an amendment to the Foreigners Act, which allows for faster issuance of residence permits. It also began consideration of the proposal for an amendment to the Employment of Foreigners Act and suspended it, as the Economic and Social Council will consider the proposal at tomorrow's meeting before it is finally adopted. It also took note of the strike agreement between the Government and the Education, Science and Culture Trade Union and authorised Minister Papič to sign it.

State Secretary Dr Damir Črnčec was recently a guest on the State of the Alliance programme produced by the Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).