Check against delivery Statement by the Republic of Slovenia at the 12th Forum on Minority Issues Geneva, 28–29 November 2019 Madam Chairperson, I would like to take this opportunity to reassure you of our longstanding commitment to promotion of the rights of persons belonging to minorities. We pursue this aim on the national, regional and international level, including as a member of the core group on minorities of the HRC, together with Austria and Mexico. Slovenia gives high regard to the minority language education as we are aware of the important heritage languages bring. We also understand that comprehension of the mother tongue presents the basis for developing understanding of other languages, including Slovene. I would like to quickly present some of the good practices. We are currently preparing a new national programme for language policy for 2019 – 2023, which will continue to place Slovene language at the center of attention as the mother tongue of the majority of Slovene citizen while taking into consideration other minority languages. We envisage special measures for Italian, Hungarian, Romani language and languages of other communities, including immigrant communities and migrants. Italian and Hungarian languages have the status of official languages in the geographic areas where the minorities live. Essentially this means offering education in their languages but also being able to communicate with public institutions and business in these two languages. The education models differ given the historic practice the two minorities developed. One of the strategic goals of the National Programme of Measures for Roma 2017– 2021 is promoting the preservation and development of the cultural, informative and publishing activities of the Roma community and striving for development of different forms of the Roma language as a minority language. Examples of this are establishing special educational incubators and Roma teaching assistants or supporting Roma associations' projects, such as a Roma Academic Club. Additionally, Slovenia also offers positive measures related to preservation of cultural identity of other communities, including financing of linguistic education and cultural activities of the German speaking community and the nations of the former Yugoslav republics. A process to incorporate the sign language into Slovenian constitution is currently taking place. Thank you.