Role of social dialogue in Bulgaria
ILO Director-General speaking note on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Bulgaria.
24 June 2015
Mr Secretary-General,
Mr Deputy Prime Minister,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the ILO, let me begin by congratulating the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on the convening of this Forum and more particularly on the 120th anniversary of its establishment.
Your organization has a long history. It shows that the Chamber has been at the service of your country, its employers and its entrepreneurs since the liberation and national awakening at the end of the 19th century, through the turbulence and dramatic changes of the 20th century, and now as they face up to the formidable challenges of the 21st.
There is much uncertainty in today’s world of work not least in Europe. Bulgaria has not been spared by the impact of the global crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, nor by the challenges today faced by Europe as it builds its responses to them, in conformity with the principles of the European Social Model and with the tools provided by it.
Foremost among those tools is social dialogue. And it is important to recognize that from the very start of the 1990s, Bulgaria decided in favour of tripartism and social dialogue as the best way of steering your country through the complex transition from the command economy of the past to the market-based systems of today and the future, and to prepare it for membership of the European Union in 2007.
I am proud that the ILO supported its Bulgarian tripartite constituents along that bumpy road. One of the ILO’s first Decent Work Country Programmes was with Bulgaria. And then we worked with you on how to apply the principles of the ILO’s Global Jobs Pact to your country at a time when crisis conditions threatened the practice of social dialogue. And more recently our cooperation has focused on strengthening the legal framework at work and tackling key issues of pension reform, youth employment, vocational education and training, and of course enterprise development.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
There is no denying the seriousness of the policy challenges facing Bulgaria and many other member states of the ILO, nor the sometimes harsh conditions that sometimes prevail in its labour markets. I think we all want to see unemployment be lower – especially for your young people.
None of this means that the choice of social dialogue was a mistake. We know that it does not guarantee magic solutions. Nor does it mean that breakdown and turbulence can always be avoided. But by adopting dialogue and the search for agreed solutions in the necessary spirit of compromise, your Chamber, with your social partner organizations and successive Governments have been crucial in helping Bulgaria find its way forward. And I commend the Chamber for its responsibility and its engagement to doing it that way.
The fact that the theme chosen for this Forum is the promotion of entrepreneurship reflects not only a key priority for business associations in Bulgaria and in other countries but also one of the major debates of the International Labour Conference which ended in Geneva just this month.
Recognizing that the great majority of new jobs in the world are created by small and medium sized enterprises (and by the way, we must create 40 million new jobs each year in the world, simply in order to absorb new entrants to the labour market), our Conference adopted conclusions which set out how their job creating potential can be optimized. And we underlined that these jobs should be decent jobs – both in terms of the conditions that they offer and the productivity that they generate – and that what is needed is an “enabling environment” to help the establishment of SMEs and to see them grow and prosper.
Enabling enterprises means providing appropriate and supportive regulation; transparent, honest and straightforward administrative processes; financial incentives and access to credit; information and training services; and assistance in meeting health and safety and industrial relations requirements.
All of this takes on particular importance in Bulgaria because building this enabling environment for enterprises can also imply overcoming the hangover of the disabling environment of a past era.
Let me add that another achievement of this year’s ILO Conference was the adoption of a new standard on the transition from the informal economy to formality at work. And that has to be good for enterprises – not only those that make that transition, but also those who are no longer undermined by the unfair competition that comes with undeclared work.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I hope you will draw the same conclusions that I do from my brief remarks. My conclusions are that the partnership between Bulgaria and the International Labour Organization has been of major significance, particularly over the last 25 years, and that our organization, whose mission it is to advance social justice, understands and is acting upon the importance of entrepreneurship in its realization.
The ILO is not as old as the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In fact our 100th anniversary comes four years from now. But to mark those 100 years, we have decided to launch an historic initiative on the Future of Work. We want to reflect together on the place of work in our societies, on the jobs of the future and where they come from, on the organization of work and production, and on how we are going to govern a world of work that is changing at a speed and on a scale we have never seen before. We need to understand and to respond to this transformation if we are to meet the challenges of the next 100 years as we have those of the past 100.
So to the Chamber I say, congratulations on the first 120 years of your existence, and best wishes for the next 120!
Thank you.
Mr Deputy Prime Minister,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the ILO, let me begin by congratulating the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on the convening of this Forum and more particularly on the 120th anniversary of its establishment.
Your organization has a long history. It shows that the Chamber has been at the service of your country, its employers and its entrepreneurs since the liberation and national awakening at the end of the 19th century, through the turbulence and dramatic changes of the 20th century, and now as they face up to the formidable challenges of the 21st.
There is much uncertainty in today’s world of work not least in Europe. Bulgaria has not been spared by the impact of the global crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, nor by the challenges today faced by Europe as it builds its responses to them, in conformity with the principles of the European Social Model and with the tools provided by it.
Foremost among those tools is social dialogue. And it is important to recognize that from the very start of the 1990s, Bulgaria decided in favour of tripartism and social dialogue as the best way of steering your country through the complex transition from the command economy of the past to the market-based systems of today and the future, and to prepare it for membership of the European Union in 2007.
I am proud that the ILO supported its Bulgarian tripartite constituents along that bumpy road. One of the ILO’s first Decent Work Country Programmes was with Bulgaria. And then we worked with you on how to apply the principles of the ILO’s Global Jobs Pact to your country at a time when crisis conditions threatened the practice of social dialogue. And more recently our cooperation has focused on strengthening the legal framework at work and tackling key issues of pension reform, youth employment, vocational education and training, and of course enterprise development.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
There is no denying the seriousness of the policy challenges facing Bulgaria and many other member states of the ILO, nor the sometimes harsh conditions that sometimes prevail in its labour markets. I think we all want to see unemployment be lower – especially for your young people.
None of this means that the choice of social dialogue was a mistake. We know that it does not guarantee magic solutions. Nor does it mean that breakdown and turbulence can always be avoided. But by adopting dialogue and the search for agreed solutions in the necessary spirit of compromise, your Chamber, with your social partner organizations and successive Governments have been crucial in helping Bulgaria find its way forward. And I commend the Chamber for its responsibility and its engagement to doing it that way.
The fact that the theme chosen for this Forum is the promotion of entrepreneurship reflects not only a key priority for business associations in Bulgaria and in other countries but also one of the major debates of the International Labour Conference which ended in Geneva just this month.
Recognizing that the great majority of new jobs in the world are created by small and medium sized enterprises (and by the way, we must create 40 million new jobs each year in the world, simply in order to absorb new entrants to the labour market), our Conference adopted conclusions which set out how their job creating potential can be optimized. And we underlined that these jobs should be decent jobs – both in terms of the conditions that they offer and the productivity that they generate – and that what is needed is an “enabling environment” to help the establishment of SMEs and to see them grow and prosper.
Enabling enterprises means providing appropriate and supportive regulation; transparent, honest and straightforward administrative processes; financial incentives and access to credit; information and training services; and assistance in meeting health and safety and industrial relations requirements.
All of this takes on particular importance in Bulgaria because building this enabling environment for enterprises can also imply overcoming the hangover of the disabling environment of a past era.
Let me add that another achievement of this year’s ILO Conference was the adoption of a new standard on the transition from the informal economy to formality at work. And that has to be good for enterprises – not only those that make that transition, but also those who are no longer undermined by the unfair competition that comes with undeclared work.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I hope you will draw the same conclusions that I do from my brief remarks. My conclusions are that the partnership between Bulgaria and the International Labour Organization has been of major significance, particularly over the last 25 years, and that our organization, whose mission it is to advance social justice, understands and is acting upon the importance of entrepreneurship in its realization.
The ILO is not as old as the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In fact our 100th anniversary comes four years from now. But to mark those 100 years, we have decided to launch an historic initiative on the Future of Work. We want to reflect together on the place of work in our societies, on the jobs of the future and where they come from, on the organization of work and production, and on how we are going to govern a world of work that is changing at a speed and on a scale we have never seen before. We need to understand and to respond to this transformation if we are to meet the challenges of the next 100 years as we have those of the past 100.
So to the Chamber I say, congratulations on the first 120 years of your existence, and best wishes for the next 120!
Thank you.