In April Human Rights Ombudsman Matjaž Hanžek received 18 students taking part in the Model European Parliament project. The aim of the project, which this year included a total of 178 students, is to familiarise secondary school students with the workings of the European Parliament. Once a year, and in a different country every year, the selected students simulate a session of the parliament and all its committees. The project has been running for several years but this year was the first time that it has been held in a country which is not yet a member of the European Union.

The Ombudsman greeted the young guests, who were debating the problem of xenophobia through a simulation of the European Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. He took the opportunity to remind them that 8 April is the International Day of Roma and outlined the issues relating to Roma in Slovenia. He presented them with the conclusions of the recent international conference in Lithuania where the European ombudsmen talked among other things about discrimination against Roma in the light of the right to education, and outlined concrete cases of xenophobia in Slovenia which he has encountered in the course of his work.

After concluding their work the young parliamentarians adopted a resolution on the issue of the fight against xenophobia and racism in Europe which can be found in full (in English) at www.varuh-rs.si/cgi/teksti-slo.cgi/Show . The young parliamentarians debated the resolution at the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia.