"Digital technologies offer huge opportunities for the improvement of service provision, participatory processes and cooperation with citizens. However, we need to ensure that these technologies are trustworthy, human-centred and focused on the fundamental rights and values of the EU," said the Slovenian Minister of Public Administration Boštjan Koritnik at the start of the informal meeting of EU State Chief Information Officers (EU CIO meeting). The meeting was attended by 54 participants from 30 countries, five Western Balkans.

As part of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU, the international conference "Semantic Interoperability Community – SEMIC 2021", a key European event in the field of semantic interoperability, organised by the Ministry of Public Administration in collaboration with the European Commission, took place on Wednesday 8 December 2021. The title of the conference was "Human Centric Data Spaces – Powered by Interoperability".

The last meeting of the Working Group of the Public Procurement Council, chaired by Director General Sašo Matas and his colleagues, took place today at the Directorate for Public Procurement of the Ministry of Public Administration in the framework of the Presidency.

At today's meeting of the Telecommunications Council, chaired by the Minister of Public Administration, Boštjan Koritnik, the EU ministers unanimously endorsed a general approach on the NIS2 directive, which will make a major contribution to improving the EU’s resilience and cyber incident response capacities. The meeting was also attended by the Minister of Digital Transformation, Mark Boris Andrijanič, who chaired the Council's policy debate on "Digital rights and principles" in the context of Europe's Digital Decade 2030.

At the last meeting of the Working Party on Staff Regulations under the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU, delegates discussed two regular annual reports, namely on the budget and financial expenditure for employees of the EU institutions and the employment of contract staff in the EU institutions. The working party was led by Peter Pogačar, Director General of the Public Sector Directorate, and his colleagues.

Negotiators from the Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a new law to promote the availability of data and build a trustworthy environment to facilitate its use for research and the creation of innovative new services and products.

Today, the Slovenian Minister of Public Administration, Boštjan Koritnik, attended a ministerial meeting of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) in Paris. Based on the guidelines harmonised at the meeting, the GPAI is seeking to contribute to the responsible development, use and management of human-centred AI systems.

Under the Slovenian Presidency, a global conference is taking place today and tomorrow, which for the first time is discussing government governance in terms of innovation, drawing-up better legislation and improving the quality of the public sector. Slovenia, together with the OECD, presented for the first time the results of a survey on the ageing of the workforce and attracting and retaining talent.

At the meeting of the Competitiveness Council held on 29 September 2021, the ministers responsible for industry and the internal market discussed the impact of the “Fit for 55” package on the competitiveness of EU industry, and the importance of better regulation for the competitiveness of the European Union and the functioning of the single market.

On Thursday, 23 September 2021, a meeting of the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) was held as part of the events of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU. The meeting was organized by the Office together with Slovenia as the presiding country.

Under the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU, the Ministry of Public Administration and the European Commission are organising a high-level conference on artificial intelligence as a hybrid event on 14 and 15 September 2021 at Brdo pri Kranju. Via an online platform, all interested stakeholders worldwide striving to better understand how to live with AI and how to manage it in the future can participate in the conference.

As part of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU, the Government Information Security Office, in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Administration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, organised a cybersecurity conference in Bled on 3 September 2021, which was held in a hybrid form.

This was the main topic discussed by the participants at the Cybersecurity Conference today in Bled, which was organised by the Government Information Security Office in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Administration as part of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU. Minister of Public Administration Boštjan Koritnik and Acting Director of the Government Information Security Office Uroš Svete opened the conference by addressing the participants.

Mr Boštjan Koritnik, Minister of Public Administration, will present the Slovenian Presidency’s sectoral programme and priorities in the areas of digitalisation, cybersecurity and better regulation at the July meetings of the European Parliament’s committees. Today he appeared before the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) to present priorities in the areas of artificial intelligence and digital services.

Today, the Ministry of Public Administration organised a conference of senior officials from the Member States of the European Union and the candidate countries of the Western Balkans entitled ‘The European Union as a community of people’. It is the first in a series of events organised by the Ministry under the Presidency of the Council of the EU. Boštjan Koritnik, Minister of Public Administration, initially addressed the participants.

As part of the ministerial meeting of the Informal Network of Public Administrations of the EU Member States (EUPAN) in Lisbon, today, Minister of Public Administration Boštjan Koritnik met with Alexandra Leitão, Portuguese Minister for the Modernisation of the State Administration. They talked about the EU Leadership Exchange Programme. Minister Koritnik also presented the priorities of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Today, Minister of Public Administration Boštjan Koritnik attended the meeting of Ministers of the Informal Network of Public Administrations of the EU Member States (EUPAN) in Lisbon. He appeared as a keynote speaker on the panel discussing skills, leadership and mobility in public administration.

Today, the Minister of Public Administration Boštjan Koritnik attended the EU Telecommunications Council meeting in Luxembourg, where he presented the priorities of the Slovenian Presidency in the field of digitisation. At the meeting, ministers took note of the state of play of legislative proposals on data management, cyber security, ePrivacy, roaming on mobile communications networks in the European Union (roaming) and artificial intelligence. There was also a political debate on the European Union’s digital future.

On the second day of the two-day official visit to Brussels, Minister of Public Administration Boštjan Koritnik met with the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Margrethe Vestager and the Director-General for Transport, Energy, Environment and Education (DG TREE) Peter Javorčik. The purpose of the two-day visit is part of Slovenia’s preparations for the Presidency to the Council of EU and present priorities in the field of digitisation or digital technologies, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Boštjan Koritnik, the Minister of Public Administration, is on a two-day official visit to Brussels in preparation for the Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council in 2021. On the first day of his visit, he met with the EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, representatives of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and Slovenian members of the European Parliament. The purpose of the meeting was to present the priorities of the Slovenian Presidency in the field of digitisation or digital technologies, artificial intelligence and cyber security.