18 October – EU Anti-Trafficking Day – is intended to raise awareness of human trafficking and to encourage everyone involved to work harder in the fight against this phenomenon. “In Slovenia we are working for the fourth year in a row to increase awareness of forced labour and labour exploitation, which is a too-little recognised form of this serious crime”, said State Secretary at the Ministry of the Interior and National Anti-trafficking coordinator Sandi Čurin.

Slovenian prime minister Marjan Šarec is attending the second day of the regular meeting of the European Council in Brussels.

As part of the meeting hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, students participating in the Young Women Ambassadors project learnt more about consular affairs.

State Secretary Simona Leskovar and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Europe and Holocaust Issues Matthew G. Boyse confirmed the interest in strengthening cooperation between Slovenia and the United States and exchanged positions on topical regional and international issues.

European Vocational Skills Week wrapped up today. A series of events and activities took place across Europe to highlight the benefits of vocational education and training and vocational skills development. The aim of the week, organised annually by the European Commission, is to improve visibility and recognition of vocational education and training (VET) and offer the relevant actors a chance to engage in dialogue. Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy, the Managing Authority for the ESF, the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund, has already approved EUR 40.5 million in ESF funding for programmes and calls for proposals aiming to promote vocational education and training in Slovenia.

At the invitation of his Cypriot counterpart Nikos Christodoulides, Foreign Minister Dr Cerar paid an official visit to the Republic of Cyprus on 17 and 18 October. He was accompanied by a group of Slovenian business representatives, who attended a business forum held in parallel with the visit.

Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy, the Managing Authority for the ERDF, the ESF and the Cohesion Fund, has issued a grant decision for the project ‘’Wastewater collection and treatment in the Meža river basin in Municipality Črna na Koroškem’’. Total project budget stands at EUR 3.8 million; the project will receive EUR 1.6 million funding from the ERDF.

Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy, the Managing Authority for ERDF, ESF and Cohesion Fund, has issued a grant decision for the call for proposals ''Strengthening the competences of young people through active citizenship to increase their employability’’ which is to be published by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. The funding made available under the call for proposals stands at over EUR 2 million, of which EUR 1.6 million comes from ESF. Cohesion region Zahodna Slovenija will receive EUR 1.2 million of the available funding, while cohesion region Vzhodna Slovenija is to get a little under EUR 837,000.

On 16 and 17 October 2019, a high-profile international conference on machine learning and data analytics was held in London entitled "Premier Machine Learning Conference – Predictive Analytics World Business".

Director-General of the Public Sector Directorate at the Ministry of Public Administration, Peter Pogačar, is attending the 38th Annual Meeting of Senior Officials from Centres of Government of OECD countries.

At Ljubljana BTC’s Crystal Palace, Foreign Minister Dr Miro Cerar today participated in a conference entitled “Export smarter: How to enhance the value of Slovenian exports”, organised by the newspaper Delo and the Institute for Strategic Solutions.

Mr Uroš Svete, the Slovenian representative in the Management Board of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), today, on 16 October 2019, attended the regular ENISA meeting at the Agency's head office in Athens.

According to the latest gender equality index for the 28 EU Member States, Slovenia is in 11th place, 0.9 points above the average. As announced today on the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities website, the top three countries are Sweden, Denmark and France and the bottom three are Slovakia, Hungary and Greece.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s theme for this year’s World Food Day is “Our actions are our future. Healthy diets for a zero-hunger world”. The theme is intended to raise awareness of obesity and increasing hunger around the world. Despite the growing hunger, hundreds of tons of food are thrown out every day around the world.

Foreign Minister Dr Miro Cerar was in Luxembourg attending a General Affairs Council (Art. 50) meeting on the state of play regarding the UK’s forthcoming withdrawal from the EU and a General Affairs Council session. The latter concentrated on enlargement and on preparations for the European Council.

On the sidelines of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting, I spoke with Spanish Foreign Minister and future High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell. I was interested in his assessment of the situation in Catalonia – and Spain! Not his assessment of the convictions, but of the next steps, both for proponents of Catalonia’s independence and the Spanish state authorities.

A delegation of six experts from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will be visiting the Ministry of Public Administration from 14 to 18 October 2019 to carry out the first comprehensive review of digital government in Slovenia. State Secretary Leon Behin addressed the delegation today.

The Dutch non-profit organisation Green Destinations has released its Sustainable Top 100 list for this year. This year’s list includes 31 destinations in Slovenia, in other words all of the destinations that were awarded gold or silver medals under the Slovenia Green tourism scheme, according to the Slovenian Tourist Board (STO).

Minister Dr Miro Cerar attended the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg focusing on the situation in Syria, Turkey’s activities in the Eastern Mediterranean, Afghanistan and Ukraine. During a working lunch, heads of Member States’ diplomacies were joined by their Ukrainian counterpart Vadym Prystaiko.

Today’s International Day of the Girl Child celebrates the achievements by, with and for girls since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action twenty-five years ago and the passage of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990. This spirit will mark a year of activities under the theme GirlForce: Unscripted and Unstoppable.