Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Andrej Benedejčič attended the Fourth Review Conference of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (Ottawa Convention), held in Oslo between 25 and 29 November 2019.

On Monday, December 2, 2019, the reading room of the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia is opening an information office, where visitors are welcome to use lists of our archival records and other finding aids, order archival records, or obtain information about the use of such records.

In collaboration with Danish and Chinese colleagues, Slovenian scientists have decoded the genome of the olm, a cave-dwelling animal also known as Proteus anguinus or, more colloquially, as the “human fish”.

The government has defined the text of the draft Act amending the Intellectual Property Act and adopted a decision to send material aid to Albania following a bilateral request.

On 28 November, Vice Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China Qin Gang hosted State Secretary Simona Leskovar for political consultations as part of regular Slovenia-China dialogue. The last consultations took place in February 2017.

The Slovenian Government responded to the appeal of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and will allocate EUR 40,000 for urgent humanitarian aid for migrants on the Western Balkan route.

Today, 28 November 2019, a seminar on joint municipal administrations in Bavaria and Slovenia is being held at the Ministry of Public Administration. The seminar was organised by the Ministry in collaboration with the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior on the basis of the programme adopted by the Permanent Slovenian-Bavarian Commission the previous year. The local self-government has been part of the Commission's programme since 1995.

Today and tomorrow, 28 and 29 November 2019, Director-General of the Public Sector Directorate at the Ministry of Public Administration Peter Pogačar and his delegation are attending the EUPAN Directors General meeting.

As part of the response of the EU civil protection mechanism, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia has agreed to send two experts to help coordinate international assistance in the aftermath of the recent earthquake in Albania.

State Secretary Dobran Božič today received the President of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Regional Council Piero Mauro Zanin during his visit to the Republic of Slovenia.

God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya, a film by Teona Strugar Mitevska that also involves a Slovenian co-producer, has won the 2019 LUX Film Prize, presented by the European Parliament.

Slovenia’s largest and longest-running publishing event, the Slovenian Book Fair, started at the end of November.

By pressing a large red button at the main offices of the University of Maribor on Wednesday, the prototype HPC RIVR @ UM supercomputer was symbolically booted.

Last week, the National Assembly adopted state budgets for the next two years. With the adopted budget for 2020, more than € 10 billion will be spent on priorities in the field of development, welfare state and security; at the same time, it is our responsibility to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability.

Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy, Managing Authority for ESIF and Cohesion Fund, has issued a grant decision for the project “Housing communities for vulnerable groups”. The project is worth over EUR 517,000 and will receive over EUR 196,000 of Regional Development Fund support in the frame of Integrated Territorial Investments (ITS) instrument.

On 26 and 27 November 2019, the Public Sector Inspectorate of the Ministry of Public Administration is hosting colleagues from the Administrative Inspection of the Montenegrin Ministry of Public Administration.

Prime Minister Marjan Šarec has visited the Office of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia for the Support and Integration of Migrants accompanied by the Minister of the Interior, Boštjan Poklukar.

As a green country with a wealth of natural resources and biodiversity, Slovenia is aware of the importance of the fight against climate change.

State Secretary Simona Leskovar attended the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in the format of development cooperation ministers. Based on the final report issued by the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons, the ministers discussed the EU’s future financial architecture for development and the support for countries in transition, with particular focus on Sudan and Ethiopia. This was followed by a discussion on gender equality and education in development cooperation.

The Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, Ambassador Andrej Benedejčič, stated at the 24th Session of the Conference of States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention: “Only a multilateral approach, assisted by the Convention and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, can pave the way for a world free of chemical weapons.”