VWP BIOMETRIC PASSPORT REQUIREMENTS: SLOVENES EXPECT NO

UNCLAS LJUBLJANA 000400 SIPDIS DEPT FOR CA/VO/F/P (DLOPES DA ROSA, RAMOTOWSKI); EUR/NCE (VTRIMM); EUR/PPD (ARUPPE, FSCHMADEL); AND ECA/PE/V/R/E (KHAVENNER) DHS FOR BCBP (CRONIN); USEU FOR POL/PRM (MMEZNAR); ROME AND VIENNA FOR DHS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: CMGT PREL KPAO SI SUBJECT: VWP BIOMETRIC PASSPORT REQUIREMENTS: SLOVENES EXPECT NO PROBLEMS COMPLYING. REF: (A) STATE 111324 (B) 2002 LJUBLJANA 0940 (C) 2003 LJUBLJANA 0655 (D) STATE 047887 (E) LJUBLJANA 0191 (F) LJUBLJANA 0243 (G) LUBLJANA 0298 (H) LUBLJANA 0384 ¶1. Conoff delivered statement about USG policy on requirements for biometric passports for Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries to Slovene government officials June 15, as directed in Ref. A. Conoff discussed the issue in an afternoon meeting with Andrej Ster, Director General of the MFA's Directorate of International Law and Protection of Interests, and with Bojan Trnovsek, State Undersecretary of the MoI's Section of Citizens' Registration and Public Documents. ¶2. Ster commented that the GoS would have no difficulty complying with any of the requirements made in the statement and suggested the timeline described would be workable. In reviewing requirements outlined in the statement, Ster and Trnovsek noted the following: - All Slovene passports already comply with Level I - they incorporate a digitized photo image laser-etched onto a polycarbonate biodata page (Ref. B). - Slovenia already reports all lost and stolen passports to INTERPOL and DHS (Ref. C). - Slovene authorities already share information with DHS about lost and stolen passports intercepted and on trends and analysis, as detailed in Post's reporting (Reftels E,F,G and H) on the VWP Action Plan (Ref.D). Ster said he would confer with Slovene Police to ensure their procedures include advising DHS of interceptions of lost and stolen passports of all nationalities. ¶3. Trnovsek said he expects Slovenia to be in compliance with Level II well before October 2006. He said the Interior Ministry's plans to deploy a biometric passport by October 2005 ran into unexpected delays recently. A government commission ordered the Ministry to republish a public tender originally published in March that requested bids for producing the biometric passport. With the tender being republished this week, the introduction of the new biometric passport has been pushed back to after the beginning of 2006. ¶4. Ster said it would be very helpful to have details of the upcoming technical conferences as soon as possible to assist in preparations. In particular he asked how many participants from each country would be invited. Ster said the certification requested in the statement would be prepared immediately. NNNN 2005LJUBLJ00400 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED v1.6.2