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
| Brussels | BG CZ ET HU LT LV PL RO SL TK |
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| Brussels | ||||
| 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 |
| 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:
- A brochure that explains how to conduct a competency assessment;
- A competency assessment form;
- A personal development plan.
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.