The Ministry of Culture is the part of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia responsible for regulating those matters in the sphere of culture which are in the public interest. These include involvement in the co-ordinated cultural development of Slovenia, protection of the cultural heritage, ensuring the plurality of the media landscape, providing suitable conditions for the creation, communication and accessibility of cultural assets, guaranteeing the special cultural rights of minorities, international co-operation in the sphere of culture and the promotion of culture at home and abroad.

Where funding of public institutions is concerned, there are special calls for archive institutions and libraries (and for the purchase of new books), for movable cultural heritage institutions (mostly museums), for unmovable cultural heritage projects (investments in infrastructure) and for audio-visual programmes. All public state cultural institutions are required to present their following year’s programmes to the Ministry of Culture, which will then decide on their annual subsidy according to the annual budget.

For non-governmental organisations, the Ministry announces (usually in Autumn) a call for public cultural programmes and projects. The call for public cultural programmes between 2007 and 2009 was announced in November 2006. Subsequently 59 programmers/producers/festival organisers were selected from amongst applicants in various disciplines to sign three-year contracts. In addition to the cultural programmes competition, there is also an annual grant competition for cultural and artistic projects in all art disciplines.

There are also some additional special public calls, for creators to bid for residency of apartments owned by the Ministry in New York and Berlin, for the operator of the EU Cultural Contact Point Slovenia and mediadesk.si, for bookstore cultural projects, for the ‘one original Slovene illustrated book for each new-born’ project, and for the organisers/curators of the Venice Biennale and Venice Architectural Biennial, for the multi-media regional centres and for vocational training organised by NGOs. Every year too there is a special call for cultural activities by the Italian and Hungarian ethnic minorities, the Romany community and other ethnic minority groups and immigrants in the Republic of Slovenia.