Govt Adopts Bill on Slovenians Abroad
The government has adopted the bill on Slovenians abroad, which deals with the jurisdictions of state authorities on cultural, economic and educational ties with Slovenians abroad, and includes provisions on repatriation.
The government adopted the bill on Thursday, with a view to pool all provisions dealing with this field in one place, thereby improving cooperations with communities living outside Slovenia.
The bill includes special provisions on the preservation of Slovenian language and education, and creates the first ever comprehensive legal basis for the funding of organisations of Slovenian immigrants.
The bill refers to three different groups of people: Slovenians with Slovenian citizenship; Slovenians without Slovenian citizenship; and those without Slovenian citizenship and without status.
The status of Slovenian without citizenship will provide certain benefits and will apply for all people who for one reason or the other cannot obtain Slovenian citizenship.
Those eligible for repatriation include people living in difficult conditions or in countries hit by severe crisis, as well as Slovenians who have made significant contributions to promoting the country abroad.
The objectives of the bill are to assert national identity, facilitate all-round cooperation, and promote the learning of Slovenian as one of the official EU languages.
It is estimated that about half a million Slovenians live abroad, including 150,000 in neighbouring countries. Only some 60,000 of them have Slovenian citizenship.
More articles from this issue:
Archive
|