Welcome to web pages of the Government Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Nationalities.

The Office for Nationalities is an independent professional service within the Government of the Republic of Slovenia.

The basic provisions on the protection of national communities are set out in the Constitution, whilst more detailed provisions are included in the legislation in various areas, that in any way relate to the position of the Italian and Hungarian National Communities and the Roma Ethnic Community. The relevant ministries are responsible for carrying out the provisions. With such a division of responsibilities, the main duty of the Office for Nationalities is global supervision of the realization of the provisions of the law on the protection of nationalities, monitoring the practical effects, drawing attention to problem areas, preparing suggestions and initiatives for the Government and other state bodies, and preparing analyses and reports on the wider issues of the protection of nationalities, together with the relevant ministries.

In the field of minority issues the Office for Nationalities also cooperates with the international organizations such as Council of Europe, European Union, OSCE, civil part of the NATO Pact etc.

Furthermore, there are some responsibilities that are exclusively in the domain of the Office for Nationalities, most of all those which are not covered by different ministries (financing of the main self-governing organizations of the Italian and Hungarian National Communities, co-financing of the bilingualism and other constitutional rights in those municipalities, where both National Communities live autochthonously, co-financing of the mutual cultural organisations residing in Croatia, co-financing of the Italian and Hungarian radio and TV programs; there are also some responsibilities regarding the Roma Ethnic Community that lives in Slovenia traditionally, historically, such as financing of the main Roma organisation (Roma Union of Slovenia), indirectly co-financing of the Roma associations all over the country and finally co-financing of the Roma activities in the field of media).

Therefore, here lie before you the web pages of the Office for Nationalities, which would like to provide some useful information about the constitutional protection of national minorities as well as special provisions that are included in different sector-specific acts, dealing in any way with the status of both National Communities and special Roma Ethnic Community living in the Republic of Slovenia.

With these web pages we would like to inform all those interested about the activities of our Office, and enable all researchers access to some of the most useful information regarding minority issues in Slovenia.

We will be pleased if you are able to find anything interesting for yourself and your work in our new web pages.

In the future, we will do our best to constantly renew and improve these pages with even richer contents.

I am pleased to welcome all who have opened these pages, and are drawn to minority issues.    

                                                                                   STANKO BALUH, M.A.

                                                                                         Director