The meeting was organized by the Pan European Regional Council – Regional Office Sarajevo, based on the Plan for the implementation of the project. The co-financer of the meeting was the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Regional Office Belgrade.
The meeting was attended by the legal, economic, communications/ campaign experts, presidents of trade unions from all seven Western Balkan countries, colleagues from CITUB and Podkrepa – Bulgaria, H.E. Ms. Guro Katharina Vikør, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway to Bulgaria, project-coordinator Siri Relling, and experts Ellen Baken and Kristian Brustad from LO Norway, ETUI experts Bruno Sergi and Grigor Gradev, external experts Martin Hutsebaut and Krastyo Petkov, Director of FES Regional Office Belgrade, Roland Feicht, and ITUC/PERC Regional Office Sarajevo staff.
The meeting thematic sessions were:
- Problems and challenges in the SEE economies – overview of the situation; * Current challenges and possibilities for changes;
- Revisiting taxation policies and systems – priorities for public and trade union interests; * Taxation policies from European perspective; * How does a social state function – Norwegian case; * Good system of taxation and controlling instruments as prerequisite for better governance;
- Rethinking “informal economy” – evolution of concept and current challenges for SEE trade unions; * Influence of informal economy on the economic development;
- The challenge of “corruption” – focus/governance problems/TU policy impact; * Living in corrupted state – what criminal transition brought – Bulgarian case;
- Building proper communication policies;
- The priority areas for trade unions, the most important issues and activities – regional and national specifics, future steps.
A complete Report and PowerPoint presentations are available on the PERC website.
ITUC/ PERC SEE Office Sarajevo
