Social dialogue in the candidate countries

Social dialogue and EMU in the Candidate Countries Workshop

Vienna, 22-24 May 2002

Speech abstract - Timo Kauppinen

Research manager, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions

Guidelines for the national development plans

The national development programmes will be based on the previous group work of the seminar as well as presentations. The first group work dealt with the situation today in economics, politics and industrial relations, from the EMU perspective. The second group work dealt with the vision of the EMU society. What does EMU society look like? How do economic development and welfare policy fare? How will companies survive and go through economic adaptation to free market needs? The seminar discourses have dealt with EMU in the EU countries. The purpose of these has been to give orientation to the convergence process in the EU countries.

Based on the group works and presentations, the national development programmes will be drafted. Guidelines for the development programmes can be summarised into six 'rules of thumb':

• what to develop

• why develop

• when to develop

• where to develop

• who is responsible for the development

• what resources are needed and available

The building of the development plan project will start by answering the question 'what to develop'. The topic must be well defined and limited to a realistic size. At least two topics should be considered: one dealing with the promotion of EMU by social dialogue and another dealing with the promotion of competitiveness/productivity by social dialogue.

It is also important to explain why the topic has been selected and why the issue is an important one to develop. The development plan must also include answers to the when and where questions. What is the timing and where will the project be carried out? It is also important to say who is responsible for the development project. Experience has shown that successful development programmes cannot be assigned to another person or institute, such as government or social partners. Persons must be involved and responsible for carrying out the project. Finally, there must be a calculation or estimation of the resources, financial and/or otherwise.

Since the workshop time is limited to draft two comprehensive development programmes, the discussion in the workshop must be well structured and chaired. After reaching consensus all 'rule of thumb' plans will be presented in the plenary session and discussed with the other participants. In September 2002, national workshops will be organised for further preparation of the programme in cooperation with the national researchers. The outcome of the entire project will be presented at the Danish Presidency Conference on 29-30 October in Elsinore, Denmark.

Timo Kauppinen is research manager in the Foundation's group focusing on industrial relations and is in charge of the following projects: the European Industrial Relations Observatory, EMU's social impacts on employment, Europeanisation of industrial relations in the new economy, European Knowledge Society Foresight for working conditions, living conditions and industrial relations. Before joining the Foundation, he worked in the Ministry of Labour in Finland as research manager. He is docent in sociology at Helsinki University.