The topics of the meeting were: The state of the labour market following the onset of the recent pandemics and war; To join the EU soon, and what does that mean; Global effects of the war and cost of living crisis: new interest rate hikes; Winners and the losers of the policies; The long-term impact of the Covid 19 to economies; What are the lessons for trade unions? Impact of the crisis on the employment and economies; ILO: Global employment and social outlook, Trade union strategies: Identifying common priorities and next steps in the field of economic policies (wage, social protection, fiscal policies etc.)
Trade unions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Georgia, and Moldova presented information and data for their individual countries. In general, the Westers Balkans countries have not seen huge changes in terms of employment and in reference to the pandemic because the Governments of all those countries passed certain programme and measures with the view of mitigating the crisis. However, the war in Ukraine has already caused tremendous crisis and all experts expressed their concern over the continuation of the war and fears regarding some new potential crisis.
ILO and ITUC-PERC representatives and experts provided their professional contribution in the seminar: Gocha Aleksandria, ILO/ACTRAV Senior Specialist for Workers Activities for Central and Eastern Europe, Michael Watt, ILO/ACTRAV economist, Daniel Kostzer, ITUC Chief economist and prof. Bruno Sergi, ETUI expert.
Meeting was addressed by leadership from national affiliates in Serbia, TUC Nezavisnost and CATUS, and director from ILO office in Belgrade.
Working languages were English and BCMS. The Power-point presentations are attached to this report.

ITUC/ PERC SEE TU Office