Estonia celebrated the ILO's 75th anniversary with an international conference on "Social Security and Market Economy" in Tallinn on April 12-15. The meeting not only underlined the importance of sound social protection systems but highlighted that, after 75 years social security remains part of the core ILO mandate. The event also marked the restoration of ILO membership for Estonia after more than five decades.
The Conference, organised by the Estonian Tripartite Council, was attended by about 200 participants from northern, central and eastern Europe. The Prime Minister, Mart Laar, and the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Marju Lauristin, opened the conference. Minister Ritenis of Latvia also addressed the meeting. The first and last sessions were chaired by Kari Tapiola representing the ILO Governing Body. The ILO delegation consisted of Oscarde Vries-Reilingh, (EUROPE), Roger Beattie (SEC/SOC) and Michael Cichon (CEET). The latter tabled a background paper "Social protection in transition econo-mies: From improvisation to social concepts", which will appear as a CEET Policy Paper Report.
Discussions covered the organisation and financing of social protection, tripartism in social security, unemployment insurance and employment problems of vulnerable groups. Speakers stressed the importance of general and financial management for the functioning of social protection and the potential roles of tripartism in the shaping of national consensus in major social policy questions particularly during transition. The meeting thus echoed the main recommendations of ILO-CEET's Cyprus roundtable on governance of social security in March.
At the end of the conference, Oscar de Vries and Minister Lauristin signed a letter of intent on co-operation between the ILO and the Ministry of Social Affairs in Estonia. MC.
