Tackling taxation, informal economy, and corruption in the Western Balkans – towards better governance and democratic processes

Within ITUC/PERC – LO Norway Project “Tackling taxation, informal economy, and corruption in the Western Balkans – towards better governance and democratic processes”, a three-day Regional training was held on 23-25 April 2014 in Sofia for legal, economic, and expert for communications and campaigns from the trade unions of the Western Balkan.

This regional training devoted most of its time to the matter of taxation systems and taxation policies, third versions of the national reports from the six participating countries, with a special emphasis on the positions of trade unions related to these matters. External expert, Mr. Martin Hutsebaut presented the first draft of the comparative analysis of the situation in the field of taxation policies in the Western Balkan. The matter of informal economy in these countries was discussed, while the experts for communications and campaigns created the trade unions strategies on the matters of taxation policies, informal economy, and corruption. The representatives and experts from LO Norway and LOFF provided their professional support to this project. A special session was held on the third day of the workshop, in cooperation with ILO - ACTRAV, which was devoted to the positions of the SEE trade unions in preparation of the new ILO instrument on informal economy.

Mr. Magnus Berge - Senior Specialist in Workers’ Activities briefly presented the ILO activities in SEE related to decent work, including the next steps of the Workers’ Group on several important matters, in reference to which the trade unions should formulate their common positions. President of CITUB – Bulgarian trade unions, Mr. Plamen Dimitrov, being the Chair of the ILO Workers’ group, listened to the trade unions experts and their concerns caused by the problem of growing engagement of workers in various forms of informal employment in their respective countries, as well as their positions, good practices, trade union actions, and proposals, which should be presented by the Workers’ group to ILO in the forthcoming period

ITUC/ PERC SEE Office Sarajevo