This European Social Partners’ project entitled ‘What are the Social Partners Needs?’ was designed to help social partners in countries that have recently joined the EU, and in candidate countries, to strengthen their capacity to represent their members’ views at European level.

This project was run in 12 countries between 2003 and 2009 (Slovakia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey).

METHODOLOGY

For all 12 countries, the project involved 2 rounds of national seminars, as follows:

PHASE 1 – In each country, a 2-day seminar was run by an expert accompanied by a panel of EU Social Partner Representatives. Around 30 national Social Partner representatives (employers and trade unions) attended the event which concluded with the formulation of 3 action plans – one employers’, one trade unions’, and one joint – describing actions to be taken to address existing challenges.

PHASE 2 – Between1 and 2 years later, the same persons met for the second round of national seminars where the above-mentioned action plans are reviewed and assessed, and future actions are developed and agreed.

All seminar reports are available below. The final report of the project was presented and discussed during a closing conference that took place in Brussels on 25 and 26 June 2009.

DOCUMENTS & TIMETABLE

COUNTRY
Phase 1 SEMINARS
Phase 1 SEMINAR REPORTS
Phase 2 SEMINAR
Phase 2 SEMINAR REPORTS
Brussels
Final Conference 25-26 June 2009 – EN  FR
2009 FINAL REPORT – EN  FR
BG  CZ  ET  HU  LT  LV  PL  RO  SL  TK
 
Brussels
Interim Conference 23-24 January 2008 – EN
2008 INTERIM SYNTHESIS REPORT – EN  FR
Croatia 1-2 October 2007 EN  HR 6 November 2008 EN  HR
Romania 26-27 September 2007 EN  RO 10 December 2008 EN  RO
Bulgaria 28-29 March 2007 EN  BG 14 November 2008 EN  BG
Turkey 22-23 February 2007 EN  TK 3 February 2009 EN  TR
2004 Phase 1 EU-8 SYNTHESIS REPORT – EN  FR
2006 Phase 2 EU-8 SYNTHESIS REPORT – EN  FR
Latvia 10-11 March 2005 EN  LV 26 April 2006 EN  LV
Estonia 7-8 February 2005 EN  ET 28 March 2006 EN  ET
Slovenia 24-25 January 2005 EN  SL 15 February 2006 EN  SL
Poland 21-22 June 2004 EN  PL 15 November 2005 EN  PL
Hungary 15-16 June 2004 EN  HU 4 October 2005 EN  HU
Czech Republic 9-10 March 2004 EN  CZ 21 June 2005 EN  CZ
Lithuania 17-18 February 2004 EN  LT 25 May 2005 EN  LT
Slovakia 29-30 January 2004 EN  SK 1 February 2006 EN  SK

COMPETENCY DEVELOPMENT PACKAGE

EU social partners have jointly developed a practical HR tool to help their member organisations to assess the competences and establish personal development plans for their staff who currently, or may in the future, represent their organisations at European level:

SOCIAL DIALOGUE SEMINARS IN MALTA AND CYPRUS

Specific interactive seminars on the European social dialogue took place in Malta on 12 April 2005 and in Cyprus on 07 September 2005.

These seminars presented the key role of social dialogue in the shaping of EU social policy, demonstrating the added value of a strong bipartite dialogue, and facilitating the active involvement of the Maltese and Cypriot social partners in the EU social dialogue.