The Director-General for European Union Affairs, Ambassador Barbara Sušnik, today held bilateral consultations with Slovakia by videoconference. She and the Slovak Director-General for European Affairs, Tomáš Kozák, exchanged views on topical bilateral, European, and international issues.

The International Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) is a newly established category II centre set up at the Jožef Stefan Institute under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the first and the only centre directly focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) with global outreach. The establishment of the IRCAI centre in Slovenia demonstrates that Slovenian researchers play a leading role in this field of scientific research and that the country provides a stimulating environment for developing a centre of this kind.

Today saw the start of the 11th session of the United Nations Open-ended Working Group on Ageing, which will take place until 1 April 2021. In addition to a high panel on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on older persons, this year's session will focus on the “Right to Work and Access to the Labour Market” and “Access to Justice”.

On 24 and 25 March 2021, a delegation of the Republic of Slovenia and Acting Director-General for International Law and Protection of Interests Marko Rakovec participated in the 60th meeting of the Committee of Legal Advisers on Public International Law (CAHDI) of the Council of Europe.

Today's press conference on the current situation related to COVID-19 featured the head of the advisory group Mateja Logar and the head of the Intensive Therapy Department of the Infectious Disease Clinic of the University Clinical Centre (UKC) Ljubljana Matjaž Jereb.

Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy has approved EU funding for the project “Promoting entrepreneurship in Natura 2000 – Vudina Business Zone”. The project worth over EUR 940,000 will be implemented by the municipality Velika Polana and will receive nearly EUR 700,000 of European Regional Development Fund support.

Today, 17 years ago, Slovenia became a full member of NATO, the most effective alliance in the history of mankind, joined by 30 countries from all over the world. As part of today’s short celebration, Minister of Foreign Affairs Anže Logar, together with Slovenia’s first Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council, Ambassador Matjaž Šinkovec, officially raised the NATO flag in front of the Ministry.

This week is marked by the first part of the Generation Equality Forum, which takes place between 29 and 31 March 2021 in Ciudad de México. The second part will be held in Paris towards the end of June under the auspices of French President Emmanuel Macron. The event is set up as an initiative to promote gender equality and women’s rights based on the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted in 1995. Mainly organised by UN Women, Mexico and France in cooperation with civil society, the Forum aims to strengthen and encourage countries to commit to concrete action to achieve genuine gender equality by 2030.

At today’s session, the Government adopted measures to contain the COVID-19 epidemic. Most of the measures will be in force from 1 April up to and including 11 April 2021.

The Government of the Republic of Slovenia today convened at the Brdo Congress Centre for its 67th regular session at which it discussed measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Among other things, the Government discussed the expert group’s proposal for an 11-day lockdown. This proposal is based on the figures which show a growing number of infections and hospitalisations and which, once again, call into question the stability of the Slovenian healthcare system, since the numbers of those needing intensive care could exceed even those that we saw at the peak of the second wave. These were all topics of the meeting that Prime Minister Janez Janša attended earlier today at the Brdo Congress Centre together with the presidents of the parliamentary parties, the heads of deputy groups, the minister of health and the minister’s expert group for the containment and control of the COVID-19 epidemic, which was hosted by President Borut Pahor.

Today at Brdo Congress Centre, Prime Minister Janez Janša attended a meeting of the presidents of parliamentary parties, heads of deputy groups, the minister of health and the minister’s expert group for the containment and control of the COVID-19 epidemic. At the meeting, the minister of health and head of the expert group presented their proposals for measures to contain the third wave of the COVID-19 epidemic ahead of them being put up for discussion and adoption at the session of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia.

State Secretary mag. Monika Kirbiš Rojs today attended a conference on draft Recovery and Resilience Plan at the invitation of the President of the Republic of Slovenia Borut Pahor. The conference was held at Brdo pri Kranju.

Prime Minister Janez Janša participated in a video conference today on media freedom and the rule of law in Slovenia. The European Parliament’s Democracy, Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights Monitoring Group (DRFMG), as part of the EP’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), continued the discussion on the freedom of the media and the rule of law in Slovenia which began on 5 March 2021.

The European macro-regional strategy EUSAIR is based on four thematic pillars, and Slovenia, on its behalf the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with key partners (Public Agency for Promotion of Entrepreneurship and Developing Projects of Municipality of Izola and the Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy) is chairing the strategy until the end of May this year – The main topic of the presidency is “green integration” as Slovenia, together with Bosnia and Herzegovina, coordinates the environmental quality pillar, which aims to improve the quality of life on the coast by the common sea – The 6th Annual EUSAIR Forum in May will be organized in a hybrid or fully virtual format, but still rich in content.

Today, at the invitation of Minister of Foreign Affairs Anže Logar, the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Bogdan Lucian Aurescu is paying an official visit to Slovenia. The visit is aimed at strengthening friendly relations between Slovenia and Romania and further deepening their cooperation within regional and international forums as well as on issues that are key to European citizens.

Today, State Secretary Stanislav Raščan took part in a virtual seminar for the listeners of Paraguay's Diplomatic Academy, Institute for Strategic Studies, and National Defence Centre. As the lecture was also an excellent opportunity to establish contacts between the Slovenian and Paraguayan diplomatic academies, Head of the Slovenian Diplomatic Academy Andraž Zidar addressed the participants at the beginning of the event.

Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy has approved funding for the project Business Zone Arnovski gozd – expansion. The nearly EUR 3 million development project will be implemented by the Municipality Žalec and supported by the EU, with the contribution from the European Regional Development Fund amounting to almost EUR 1.5 million.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia and the Embassy of Slovenia in Copenhagen, in cooperation with the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and SPIRIT Slovenia, invite you to participate in the UN International Procurement Seminar to take place in virtual format on 16–17 June 2021. This year, the seminar is being organised for a second time, in partnership with Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom.

We are pleased to inform you about the launch of the event of the International Research Center on Artificial Intelligence under the auspices of UNESCO (IRCAI), which will take place on 29-30 March 2021. The event will be held online, with the Director-General of UNESCO, Ms. Audrey Azoulay, participating as an introductory speaker on March 29.

State secretary Blaž Košorok today participated in a video conference of transport ministers of the Trio Presidency of Germany, Portugal and Slovenia, which was hosted by the Portuguese Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Pedro Nuno Santos, who currently chairs the meetings of EU transport ministers. The meeting of the transport ministers of the Trio Presidency takes place ahead of an informal video conference of EU transport ministers to be held on Tuesday, 30 March. The Trio Presidency has taken stock of the work of the Portuguese Presidency so far and the developments on individual dossiers considered.