SEE TU REGIONAL COOPERATION IMPROVEMENT: NETWORK OF ECONOMIC EXPERTS

The Southeast Europe Trade Union Economic experts’ network has been established in 2009 by the Pan-European Regional Council (PERC) of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and it is now a new important reality in the panorama of trade unions in former Yugoslav countries and Albania. Network’s activities are coordinated by Enisa Salimovic, Director of the ITUC / PERC SEE Office Sarajevo, in frame of the regional activities, occasionally financially supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Regional office in Belgrade and by other SSO such as LoTCO Sweden and Lo Norway.

The Network’s mentor is Prof. Bruno S. Sergi, PhD, University of Messina, Italy, where he teaches international economics, with a teaching experience worldwide, who as an economic expert has been appointed by the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels to supervise and guide the economic activities of the Network.

This network of economic experts has already gathered three times in Belgrade, Sarajevo and Kotor, and many more meetings are on the pipeline, with the aim of enhancing professional capacities of the members, develop economic ideas and offer pragmatic working hypotheses, which have already been put forward during the previous meetings. The topics and analyses that will be raised are defined on a basis of suggested priorities and conclusions of the SEE TU Forum, as well as on a basis of suggestions raised by the network’s members - economic experts alone.
The network endeavors to offer better economic growth policies and anticorruption strategies, among others, and work out specific analyses, working documents and concrete projects and initiatives to foster sustainable economic growth throughout the region, by that proposing the adoption of a regional approach to anti-crises measures, among others. The network provides the basis for national trade union leaders to encourage an open and constructive dialogue among all relevant parties in their countries.

Besides the introduced SEE TU Economist Experts’ Network, the ITUC / PERC is about to establish a “twin“Trade Union Economic experts’ network for the NIS countries, and will be coordinated by the ITUC / PERC Regional Office Moscow.