Mitja Gaspari was born on 25 November 1951 in Ljubljana.

In 1975, he graduated in ‘financial and monetary economics from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Ljubljana. He earned his MSc in monetary economics at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade.

He began his career at the Bank of Slovenia where he first worked as an analyst in 1981 and then as the Director of the Analysis and Research Centre. In 1987 he became Deputy Governor of the Bank of Slovenia and then Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Yugoslavia. In September 1991 he went to work for the World Bank in Washington D.C. for a year. He worked as a Senior Financial Economist in the Trade & Finance Division, Technical Department and the Europe & USSR Region. Between 1992 and 2000 he was Minister of Finance of the Republic of Slovenia. In the autumn of 2000 he was elected an MP, but gave up his seat in April 2001 to become Governor of the Bank of Slovenia.

During his mandate Slovenia successfully introduced the euro as the country’s currency. He has written several articles for international journals and publications and participated in numerous debates and conferences. Before he became Minister without Portfolio Responsible for Research and European Affairs, he worked at the Economic Institute of the Law School.

Andreja Jerina was born in Ljubljana on 2nd March 1961.

She successfully completed her studies at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology>in 1984 with a degree in chemistry. In 1995, she continued studies at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana where she earned an MBA degree the following year.

She began her professional career at the National Research Institute and for many years she has been active in biochemical research. In 1990 Ms Jerina focused her career on providing expert assistance to companies, first in the field of environment protection then in 1996 in the field of EU function and the possibilities which the European integration brings to companies. At that time she worked for the Chamber of Economy and Commerce of Slovenia where she managed its EU Department and established a support information system for Slovenian companies, which provided up-to-date information on the progress of EU integration, adapted to the companies’ needs with regard to the EU, as well assistance regarding the conditions for functioning on the EU internal market and the possibilities for financing from various sources within the European budget. Throughout the pre-accession period, Ms Jerina led the national coordination of EU assistance within the Slovenian government; at that time she managed the coordination of preparations for negotiations with the European Commission on almost 30 financial memorandums and later led negotiations on the Slovenian side.

In 2003, she became the State Secretary at the Government Office for Local Self-Government and Regional Policy, where she was principally in charge of the European cohesion policy.

Two years later she was employed by the Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia where she worked until the end of 2008 as Supreme State Auditor, responsible for auditing EU and international funds.

On 22 November 2008, Ms Andreja Jerina was appointed State Secretary of the Minister responsible for development and European affairs. She began her term of office as the State Secretary at the Government Office for Development and European Affairs on 1st January 2009.

Ms Jerina is fluent in English, Serbian and Croatian.

Like all ministers and state secretaries, the Minister and State Secretary are bound to respect the Code of Ethics of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia.