by Petra Ulshoefer
Director
This edition of the Newsletter comes following an eventful year for the ILO’s Subregional Office for Central and Eastern Europe (SRO Budapest). Eight countries covered by the office – the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – became members of the European Union in May 2004. This represents the culmination of 15 years of difficult transformation from state socialist systems to modern democracies and economies founded on market principles. The ILO SRO Budapest played a key role in advising governments and the social partners in the reform of labour markets, legislation, and structures for social dialogue.
The accession of these countries to the EU marks a significant achievement, and is also a milestone for the SRO Budapest. Our activities and advisory services are now focused increasingly on the transfer of the invaluable know-how and experience of transition gained in the new member states to other countries in the subregion, which include three further EU accession countries (Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania), other countries in South East Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro), as well as Moldova and Ukraine. All of these countries face unique challenges, but all can gain significantly from previous successful transition experience.
Meanwhile, just as the problems faced by the new EU member states have not disappeared overnight, our activities in these countries, based on the ILO’s four strategic objectives and the Decent Work Agenda, have not come to an end. Despite continued promising economic growth rates, high unemployment and especially long-term unemployment remain persistent problems in many geographical regions in the new member states. Meanwhile, in the face of dramatic demographic changes, like in other European countries, the problems of modernizing social protection systems have to be tackled in Central Europe. Relatively low income levels, lack of awareness and, in the case of pension reform, the appropriate choice and management of new schemes, make these difficulties even more acute. Likewise, gender equality remains an important issue, where much progress should still be made in the subregion. We also continue to promote the ratification and implementation of relevant international labour standards and the efficient use of social dialogue at not only the national, but also the local and sectoral levels in the region.
This Newsletter arrives during the preparations for a major event in the life of the Office – the VIIth European Regional Meeting of the ILO, to be held in Budapest on 14–18 February 2005. The conference, organized by Hungary with the support of the Luxembourg Presidency of the EU and the ILO, will address the growing impact of globalization on jobs (especially youth employment and the role of good social and economic governance), migration, and employment security in Europe and Central Asia. The conference will be the first since the recent enlargement of the EU to gather government, labour and business leaders from the 25 EU member states and an additional 25 ILO member states from other European and Central Asian countries to seek ways to address growing concerns over joblessness and decent work within the near future.
A newly issued major report, Managing Transitions: Governance for Decent Work was issued by the ILO in December, and provides up-to-date analysis for the discussions at the conference. Four key areas of concern for the expanded EU are highlighted, including massive youth unemployment; the need for a better balance between flexibility and security of employment; the relation between labour force participation, the ageing population and pension reform; and rapidly growing labour migration.
Hungary’s minister of employment and labour, Mr Gábor Czizmár, and Mr Friedrich Buttler, director of the ILO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, signed an agreement on the conference in the second half of 2004. The conference will be jointly funded by the ILO, Hungary and Luxembourg, and the SRO Budapest has been deeply involved in the preparations on behalf of the ILO.
Finally, this edition of the Newsletter marks a change in concept from previous issues, as the success of previous “thematic” editions has encouraged us to take the process further. The SRO Budapest will soon launch a new publication, the Bulletin, to deal with specific thematic topics. The first issue of the Bulletin, to be published in spring 2005, will focus on the VIIth Regional Meeting. Planned future topics include gender equality, migration and trafficking, and other key issues. In each edition of the Bulletin, the SRO Budapest’s expert staff and network of national correspondents will provide unique views and insights into developments on the given topic throughout the subregion.
With the advent of the thematic Bulletin, the Newsletter resumes its traditional and crucial role of providing a regular overview of key activities of the Office and of the countries it covers. The articles themselves can only reflect a small fraction of the developments and the work of the experts and staff at SRO Budapest, but they provide a view into some of the key issues facing the subregion today from the viewpoint of the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda.
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| The ILO Budapest Newsletter |
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| Events & campaigns |
On the occasion of the 8th European Regional Meeting, the ILO is launching the Albanian, Romanian, Serbian and Ukrainian versions of the Decent Work Flash
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