From 2 to 4 February 2004, the 10th Consultations of Slovenian Diplomats will be held in Brdo pri Kranju and Ljubljana, addressing the tasks and challenges of the Slovenian diplomatic service.
The consultations are a traditional working meeting between the heads of Slovenian diplomatic missions and consular posts and the Slovenian Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and leading officials at the Foreign Ministry. In addition, the participants of the consultations will meet with representatives of other institutions active in the foreign policy field. The consultations will also focus on the economic dimension of diplomacy, to which meetings with the representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and companies will be devoted. As the Ministry aims to strengthen activities in the field of international relations in culture, international cultural relations will be debated in discussions which will also be attended by the Director General for Cultural Relations from the Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands.
This year's consultations will be attended by three eminent guests: Mr Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, Mr Joschka Fischer, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany, and Mr Franco Frattini, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Republic. Dr Rupel will hold separate bilateral talks with all three guests. Mr Cimoszewicz and Mr Frattini will address the participants in the initial part of the consultations while Dr Rupel and Mr Fischer will head the round table on EU issues on the second day of the consultations.
The consultations will focus mainly on Slovenia's forthcoming membership of the EU and NATO and related issues and organisational tasks of Slovenian diplomacy. The participants will also discuss:
