CESI in Belgrade: Strengthening gender equality in Serbia and the healthcare sector

In its press release accompanying the 2015 CSRs, the European Commission claims that it has made “a number of changes” to the European Semester process with the aim of “increasing political ownership and accountability of European and national decision-making.” According to the Commission, this includes:

– a better focus on the priorities of the Annual Growth Survey with fewer recommendations on just a few, key priority areas for action;
– an earlier publication of country-specific and euro area analyses to allow for deep discussions with Member States and social partners on the key issues;
– a more intensive outreach at political and technical levels to discuss past and future recommendations; and
– an adjusted timetable to give more time for all actors to discuss and agree priorities from a European perspective and to compare national performance and priorities in this light.

Apart from this, the Commission says its CSRs aim to improve “employment policy and social protection to enable, support and protect people throughout their lives and to ensure stronger social cohesion as a key component of sustainable economic growth.”

In the context of its work in the European Semester Alliance, a broad stakeholder coalition to support progress towards a more democratic, social and sustainable European Semester, CESI will now analyse these announcements and assess whether the European Commission’s claims carry weight and can be welcomed against the backdrop of much needed boosts in transparency, democracy & legitimacy, effectiveness, and social justice in the European Semester process and policy substance.

At the core of the seminar was a capacity-building session for the DBwV leadership about strategic interest representation to the EU with Klaus Heeger (CESI General Secretary), Thomas Sohst (Chair of CESI’s Trade Council ‘Defence’**) and Emmanuel Jacob (President of the European Organisation of Military Associations, EUROMIL).

This session took place in the context of bilateral meetings with key staff in the EU institutions: On Wednesday, May 6, the CESI/DBwV delegation met at the Council of Ministers with Colonel (GS) Peter Kallert from the EU’s Military Committee (EUMC) to broadly discuss the interests of the DBwV in the context of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Thursday saw a corresponding debate at the European Parliament with the office of German MEP Michael Gahler (EPP).

During these encounters, the CESI/DBwV delegation did not hesitate to raise two subjects especially close to its heart: The necessity of an effective right for coalition for employees in the defence sector in all EU Member States and the need to establish common rights for soldiers from the different EU Member States whenever they are on a common mission.

*The DBwV represents the interests of approximately 200,000 German affiliates in all aspects of service and social justice in the armed forces, be it active-duty soldiers, civilian members of the armed forces or supporting members. The CBwV is a long-standing member of CESI.
**CESI’s Trade Council ‘Defence’ is its primary forum of debate on policy and political developments in the area of working conditions for employees in the field of defence, bringing together representatives from its member organisations working in this field.

The conference, which explicitly addressed the topic ‘Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA): Why not?’, centered around the much-stated concerns by many competent stakeholders that public services must be adequately protected -if not fully excluded- from TiSA.

Interventions by MEPs such as Monika Vana and Georges Bach -who spoke on behalf of TiSA rapporteur Viviane Reding– mirrored these concerns. Also, expert speaker Nikolai Soukup from the Department of EU and international affairs at the Vienna Chamber of Labour expressed substantial reservations about exposing Europe’s public services to liberalisation and market-opening through TiSA.

CESI was especially glad to hear that -upon a question by its Secretary General Klaus Heeger- the representative of the European Commission Ignacio Iruarrizaga (Acting Head of Unit in charge of trade in services at DG Trade) reassured that the European Commission does strive to ensure the adequate protection of public services in TiSA.

This is in line with an official announcement made by the European Trade Commissioner Malmström on the protection of public services in TiSA (and TTIP), issued on March 20 this year. CESI will hold the European Commission accountable in this regard and hopes that Commissioner Malmström did not relate to a possible liberalisation of public services under TiSA (or TTIP) when she announced shortly afterwards in front of an US-American audience in Washington D.C.: “People are concerned about what they see as TTIP’s possible impacts – whether it’s on public services, regulatory protection or investment arbitration. We know that such fears are not justified by the facts.”

As a European trade union federation representing several million public sector workers in many European countries, CESI has for long worked for a full exclusion of public services from TTIP and TiSA. It proposes to insert a ‘Gold standard clause’ in these agreements to protect public services. In February this year, it hosted an event with MEP Viviane Reding on this topic.

Addressing the audience in keynote interventions, all speakers agreed on the need to put a reinforced emphasis on the prevention of radicalisation of citizens if the threat of terrorism in Europe is to be minimised in the long-term. At the same time, each speaker brought in own sector-specific expertise and background knowledge, thereby making an informed, well-rounded debate possible.

Delivering the opening address, Hermann Benker (President of the Bavarian Police Trade Union and Vice-President of CESI’s Trade Council ‘Security’) introduced the challenge involved in the inhibition of radicalisation of young citizens: The capacity and potential to detect the often discretely radicalising youngsters in the first place.

Omar Ramadan (head of the Radicalisation Awareness Network, RAN) followed up on this, noting that this challenge can only be overcome by joint action of different societal actors: NGOs and victim groups must become partners of public services involved in preventing radicalisation, police officers need to build bridges locally in communities at risk (on a continuous basis and not only when radicalisation has already become imminent), teachers and educators need to exchange best practices more systematically in order to learn how to detect potentially radicalising youngsters. He went on to explain that the RAN was established with the explicit aim to facilitate such activities.

Rodrigo Ballester (member in the cabinet of education, culture, youth and sport Commissioner Tibor Navracsics) added in his intervention that the EU must deploy all its instruments to counter radicalisation, naming a number of possibilities of action under Erasmus+ as an example. He also mentioned that the recently issued European Agenda on Security for 2015-2020 is a new attempt to put the inhibition of radicalisation and terrorism at the centre of attention of European policy makers. Importantly, he stressed that radicalisation can only be successfully prevented and fought in the long-term if social inclusion at all levels and in all sectors is used as a weapon against it – be it in or through sports, education, or employment. After all, well-integrated citizens are least likely to be susceptible to terrorist activities, he explained.

Claude Heiser (President of CESI’s Trade Council ‘Education’) then spoke on the role of schools in preventing the radicalisation of young people. He seconded Mr Ballester’s words on social inclusion, noting that keeping young people away from school drop-out is an important tool to inhibit their radicalisation. To this end, he said, schools must be enabled to be places where young people enjoy going and can flourish. Moreover, he noted, teachers must be trained to be not only excellent knowledge transmitters but successful conflict managers and true pedagogical educators beyond school subjects, too. He also called for syllabi to be adjusted so as to focus school education more on ethics and tolerant lifestyles.

Jean-Claude Delage (Secretary General of the French National Police Alliance and one of CESI’s Vice-Presidents) then brought the discussion away from education-related challenges to the need to enable police forces to effectively ensure public order and prevent terrorist attacks. For this, he said, more and better equipped police forces are required. He said that even though police forces alone can never achieve a ‘zero terrorist threat’ scenario, they play a crucial role in the fight against terrorism.

The floor was then opened to comments and questions by the audience. They related, for example, to the need to also involve prison guards in radicalisation prevention strategies (for instance through the European Organisation of Prison and Correctional Services, EuroPris) and on the necessity to include a cultural dimension into social inclusion and radicalisation prevention mechanisms in Europe (for example via cultural diplomacy and the Creative Europe programme).

n his concluding remarks, CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger recalled the relevance of the topic of the debate for CESI, saying that many of the members of the organisations it represents work in direct contact with those societal groups where radicalisation is statistically most present: Teachers with students, prison guards with prisoners, and police forces with inhabitants in local communities at risk. In this context, he urged policy makers in the EU and the Member States to do all they can in order to better support, enable and protect them in their efforts to carry out their work in the best possible manner.

If you are interested in more information about the event’s discussions or the subject area of radicalisation and terrorism and the public services’ role in preventing it more generally, please do not hesitate to contact the CESI General Secretariat.

* CESI’s Trade Council ‘Security’ is its primary forum of debate on policy and political developments in the area of working conditions for employees in the field of internal security, bringing together representatives from its member organisations working in this field.

On the one hand, the report on the 3rd European Company Survey positively notes that many establishments do make available a variety of instruments to facilitate direct employee participation and that “social dialogue is functioning well in a large proportion of establishments”.

However, it criticises that the functioning of social dialogue and the uneven geographical spread of social dialogue structures across European countries is “a reason for concern”. On the negative side, it also mentions that about half of all establishments engaged in market activities lack a large number of instruments in place to enable direct participation, a high level of employee involvement as well as positive management attitudes toward employee participation.

Unfortunately, for CESI, the report only covers establishments engaged in ‘market activities’ (thereby excluding the public services: public administration, health, and education). As a trade union umbrella organisation representing several million public sector workers in many European countries, CESI in this context welcomes Eurofound’s stated commitment to prepare a corresponding report which specially focuses on the situation in the public services.

Commonly marked on May 1, the International Workers’ Day is being celebrated since the 19th century all around the world in order to commemorate past achievements of the trade union movements and to reflect on future challenges for worker rights that still need to be addressed.

In the EU and its Member States, working conditions for employees have -generally speaking- of course come a long way during the last decades. The EU in particular has on many occasions responded successfully to new developments in the labour markets. As people and workers have become more mobile -sparked not least by the EU’s efforts to set up a functioning common market- it has put legislation in place to set minimum occupational rights standards for all EU citizens and especially for workers that move for work across borders or to another Member State.

In fact, the EU institutions even often praise themselves for having adopted legislative pieces such as the Working time directive, the Posted worker directive or the directive on equal treatment at work. However, this is not to say that today all workers in the EU enjoy fair and adequate working conditions at any time: Much more can be done when it comes to the implementation and enforcement of the previously mentioned pieces of legislation. And the EU is still lacking a common regulation on many important aspects related to work and the labour markets.

In this context, CESI and its member organisations would very much welcome if EU and Member State policy makers would take the occasion of this year’s International Workers Day to think about being more bold and more ambitious in their employment and social policies. After all, the challenges are numerous: The Maternity leave directive proposal needs to be saved, effective measures need to be put in place for fair and voluntary labour mobility, and the Youth Guarantee needs to be implemented as soon as possible and without exceptions in all Member States. Just to name a few.

As in the past, CESI stands ready to advise and be consulted.

The heads of state and government of the EU Member States will meet in June for the next EU Defence Summit. Under the lead of the EU’s High Representative Federica Mogherini, they will not only analyse Europe’s current security situation more generally but also assess the state of play, internal organisational efficiency and funding effectiveness of the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP).

It was against this backdrop that CESI’s Defence Trade Council met today. In order to provide input to the upcoming EU Defence Summit, it discussed and adopted resolutions on different aspects of the EU’s defence and security situation. Central aspects of the meeting related in particular to the need for a more widespread commitment among European policy makers to step up the rights of the staff members of the armed forces.

After all, fundamental rights for members of armed forces -such as freedom of association- are still not equally well respected and applied throughout Europe. While they are rather advanced in countries such as Germany and Greece, other states restrict these rights for the members of their armed forces, saying that granting more rights would impede the discipline in the armed forces. However, recent decisions of the European Court of Human Rights clearly incite states to grant rights like the freedom of association to employees of this armed forces sector, too.

The CESI Defence Trade Council members discussed this with representatives of the relevant European Parliament committee secretariats (AFET/SEDE) as well as with Colonel Klaus Jenschik, assistant to the chief of the EU Military Staff (EEAS). These representatives stressed that since defence policy is (still) a competence of the Member States, the EU does not possess much legislative power when it comes to ensuring the rights of the workers employed in the national armed forces.

Replying to this, the CESI Defence Trade Council President Thomas Sohst (DBwV) argued that soldiers that take part in common European missions must clearly be entitled to benefit from common rights as well. According to him, it is not acceptable that different people in the same common military operation are subject to different standards and enjoy (or not) different rights. Above all, he stressed, soldiers that defend the idea of democracy and human rights for Europe have to enjoy them themselves, too.

The Trade Council members concluded that even if in the short term the Commission President Juncker’s idea of a common European army will unlikely be realised, any further step towards a better cooperation and/or deeper integration of national armed forces in Europe must be accompanied by an increase in workers’ rights and parliamentary control at the EU level. The CESI Defence Trade Council is going to adopt a position paper which calls on the June EU Defence Summit to be more ambitious to this end.

According to the UN, about two million men and women died from accidents and diseases linked to their work during the last year. Many more have experienced non-fatal injuries, harmful exposures, stress, or other occupational health and safety risks. What is just as shocking as these numbers is that still today many workers in Europe and around the world continue to be harmed at work despite increasing knowledge about how to improve occupational health and safety for employees. In fact, a lot more could be achieved if there was a more widespread will and commitment among political leaders and business to protect workers.

This is why CESI has in the past continuously engaged in awareness raising about existing occupational health and safety deficiencies. In the past, CESI carried out a large-scale project on ‘Better working places – Better lives’ with major seminars in Lisbon and Rome, and for several years CESI has been an official partner of the ‘Healthy workplaces‘ campaign of the EU Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA).

More recently, CESI has focused its work in the field of occupational health and safety especially on aspects related to new work arrangements, having identified a number of risks to employee well-being that certain new working patterns such as home office work and involuntary part time work may give rise to.

Please do not hesitate to get in contact for further information about CESI’s work on occupational health and safety.

On the one hand the report duly acknowledges that 13 European countries* have a “well-established social investment approach to many social policies” which also “tend to preserve and further develop good institutional linkages between different policy areas, especially when they are addressing key social challenges”.

However, on the other hand the report also finds that policies in nine European countries** only feature isolated elements of a social investment approach – while a “social investment approach has not so far made many significant inroads into the overall policy agenda” of another 13 countries.***

The report states Italy as an example of this latter group of countries. Here, the report reads: “There has been a reduction in financial resources for public services (…), i.e. the main providers of services and benefits. This reduction is likely to jeopardise the service delivery capacity of local authorities as demonstrated by a 23.5% general decrease in their investments which occurred between 2008 and 2012.”

As a European trade union confederation representing several million public sector workers from many European countries to the EU, CESI has for long called to recognise the necessity to maintain strong public sectors which have the capacity to ensure quality services of general interest. CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “Social investments are vital to keep the societies functioning – but they always require strong public services for their implementation in the first place. In the presence of austerity and continued cuts in public administrations, social investments will always have a hard time in Europe.”

The full report, as released by the European Commission, is available here.

* Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Slovenia.
** Cyprus, Spain, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, the UK.
*** Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, FYROM, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey.

The meeting with Annika Nowak from the cabinet of Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis was attended by the President and Secretary General of the CSI-F, the Spanish public officials’ independent trade union, Miguel Borra Izquierdo and Eliseo Moreno Burriel, as well as by CESI’s Secretary General Klaus Heeger and health policy advisor Agathe Smyth.

The aim of the meeting was to bring to the agenda recent cuts in the financing of the Spanish state’s civil servants health mutuality. CESI and the CSI-F stressed that the cuts have resulted in a deterioration of social protection and sanitary supply in more than 20 Spanish provinces.

Speaking to Ms Nowak, the CESI/CSI-F delegation acknowledged that certain budgetary adjustments in the Spanish public administrations are justified to overcome the effects of the recent economic crisis in the country. However, they also stressed that recent changes made in the Spanish health care system have already had dramatic consequences for public health care employees, leaving many of them without adequate medical assistance coverage.

CSI-F and CESI therefore sought a meeting with the cabinet of Commissioner Andriukaitis in order to discuss how the Spanish government can be encouraged to refrain from further financial cuts in the Spanish health care sector.

During a discussion on the direction of social dialogue in Europe, Mr Dombrovskis said that “a well-functioning social dialogue is very important for the European Commission” and that “a sustained and coordinated effort at all levels and from all actors” is necessary to reinforce the competitiveness and fairness of Europe’s social market economy. He also mentioned the need for a “greater involvement of social partners in the European project” and his desire to “strengthen ties between Commission services and the sectoral social dialogue committees”.

As a recognised sectoral social partner, CESI very much welcomes these statements and hopes that the new Juncker Commission will soon turn its much-stated commitment for “a new start for social dialogue” into concrete measures aimed at involving all social partners -especially the sectoral ones- more systematically and comprehensively into all relevant policy discussions.

The recurring drowning of ever increasing numbers of migrants in the Mediterranean is all the more shocking because European political leaders have until now failed to set up an adequate, powerful successor to the operation ‘Mare Nostrum’.

Developing a genuine and fair immigration policy including deeper cooperation with the countries of origin and departure of migrants and a diplomatic “feuille de route” is a must. “Many EU Member States in particular apparently still have to learn that many policies, especially immigration and migrations policies, are common policies and have to be tackled jointly in a spirit of solidarity and burden sharing”, CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger stated.

CESI also believes that stepping up rescue efforts substantially must be a part of the solution of alleviating the situation in the Mediterranean and is thus urgently needed. In this context, CESI welcomes yesterday’s announcement by the foreign and interior ministers of the EU Member States to extend rescue operations. CESI represents a large number of public sector workers at the EU-level, including workers of police forces. Already in a resolution in 2013, CESI underscored the important role played by public service workers employed in the fields of humanitarian and rescue tasks as well as crisis management and security, and stressed that their tasks must not fall victim to recent trends to engage in austerity and cuts in public expenditures.

The four-day summit, the first of its kind, gathered around 15 representatives from Europe and 40 from Latin America and the Caribbean in order to exchange best practices in the field of education and youth employment initiatives. Both regions face similar challenges when it comes to high levels of youth unemployment and in both regions there are strong youth movements that want to make their voice heard about it.

In this context, workshops focused on topics such as ‘Participation of youth in the promotion of labour market policies and youth rights’ or ‘Tools and strategies for sustainable youth employment’. For the CESI Youth, it was especially important to underscore the importance of empowering young workers and enabling them to live an independent life – and to carry this idea across Europe’s borders, too.

At the end of the conference, a declaration with key demands was adopted. It stipulates, inter alia, that:

• Youth stakeholders, including from trade unions, must be allowed a greater role than has been the case the so far when it comes to designing, implementing, and monitoring youth employment policies such as the EU’s youth guarantee scheme.
  In this context, the CESI Youth, too, would be glad to be consulted more often by policy makers.

• Voluntary labour mobility is an important issue for young people and should be further facilitated.
  This demand is broadly in line with CESI’s work on voluntary labour mobility more generally. Just some weeks ago, in March, it adopted an agreement between two of its member trade union organisations from Germany (dbb) and Spain (SATSE) with a view to practically enabling the movement of health sector workers between the two countries.

* Community of Latin American and Caribbean States

During the hearing, Mr Goris underscored the key demands of CESI in the field of tax justice and tax avoidance:

• The publication of all tax rulings and a ban on rulings in connection with tax havens. This would to increase transparency in the area and facilitate the work of tax inspectors, thereby minimising the risk of politically biased, unfair tax advantages for some actors.
• An increase in the number of tax inspectors (instead of austerity-induced counterproductive staff cuts) and a better harmonised cooperation among them across the Member States. More tax inspectors and a better cooperation across Member States naturally translate into more control over dubious tax practices.

A video of the intervention and following debate can be accessed here.

As regards tax justice and effective tax control, CESI’s Trade Council ‘Central Administration and Finances’ is currently also working on a resolution sketching out recommendations for fair and effective taxation systems in Europe. The resolution will be adopted and publicly made available in May this year.

he EMPL Committee opinion calls, inter alia,

• “to take immediate steps to guarantee Member States’ right to legislate, fund, organise, set quality and safety standards for, manage and regulate all public services, including education, social services, health services, water supply, sewage disposal, waste disposal, social security, railways and public transport, energy, cultural and audiovisual services, etc. and to ensure the exclusion of public services (including water, health, social security systems and education) from the scope of the treaty”;
• “to ensure an explicit exclusion of public services, as referred to in Article 14 TFEU, from the scope of application of TTIP, in order to ensure that national and local authorities have the freedom to introduce, adopt, maintain or repeal any measure with regard to the commissioning, organisation, funding and provision of public services”;
• to safeguard “the full scope for the re-nationalisation and re-municipalisation of services”; and
• “to ensure, in order to safeguard the European social model against competition from Anglo-Saxon American capitalism, and that collectively funded public services and social security systems are not sacrificed”.

As a stakeholder representing several million employees working in the field of public services, CESI welcomes and fully supports the opinion of the EMPL Committee and the above provisions in particular. Indeed, the opinion reflects much of what CESI has actively worked for during the last months, when it was active on a ‘Gold clause’ initiative on the protection of public services in trade agreements together with the Social Platform.

CESI works for a full exclusion of public services from TTIP. It believes that both the quality of public services as well as working conditions for employees employed in that sector would likely deteriorate if public services were exposed to TTIP-induced pressures. In this context, CESI calls on the INTA Committee to take on board the suggestions by the EMPL Committee during its committee vote. The vote is scheduled to take place on May 28.

The consultation is a follow up of a 2013 Commission ‘fitness check’ which found that the existing EU legislation on information and consultation of workers is generally fit for purpose but shows a number of gaps, inconsistencies and shortcomings. Now, the aim is to find out whether a formal initiative to revise or recast the existing legislative framework is desirable.

As a recognised social partner in the sectoral social dialogue committee ‘Central governments administration’ (SDC CGA), CESI advocates an encompassing right of information and consultation for employees in all sectors and fields – including in public administrations, which have so far been excluded from the EU’s information and consultation of workers framework. In line with this, it has already been negotiating within the SDC CGA with a view to adopting an agreement on the right to information and consultation of public sector employees.

Given the high importance it attaches to the information and consultation of workers in public administrations, CESI will also hold a large scale symposium in Dublin on June 25-26 on ‘Better anticipate changes and restructuring in public administrations in Europe: the role played by the information and consultation of employees’.

In this context, CESI welcomes this consultation and will submit a contribution, hoping that it will help include public administrations’ staff in the EU framework on worker consultation. The consultation will be discussed during an SDC CGA meeting next week.

* This refers to the EU directives on collective redundancies, transfers of undertakings, and a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the EU (accompanying joint declaration available here).

Against the backdrop of recent terrorist attacks within and outside Europe, the next CESI@noon event on May 5 will examine how public services – and teachers and security forces in particular – can be better equipped and enabled to help fight radicalisation and terrorist recruitment.

Invited guests include Rodrigo Ballester (Member of the Cabinet of Commissioner Tibor Navracsics), Omar Ramadan (Head of the Radicalisation Awareness Network Secretariat), Jean-Claude Delage (Secretary General of Alliance Police Nationale), and Claude Heiser (President of CESI Trade Council ‘Education’).

Further information about the event is available in our upcoming event section. Please follow this link to register.

For the EU as a whole, the review indicates a cross-sector employment growth of 1% in 2014. In line with this, employment in the public administrations was also shown to have grown, on aggregate, by 0.8%. However, at the same time the statistics also demonstrate how many EU Member States continue to see austerity-induced cuts in their public budgets being translated into job cuts in their public administrations. Examples include not only Portugal and Greece but also Romania, which saw a staggering 3.6% reduction in size of its public administrations’ workforce in 2014 alone.

In this context, CESI welcomes Commissioner Thyssen’s reassurance of today that “creating jobs and boosting growth is at the core of the Commission’s priorities.” CESI believes that the start should be made in the crisis-hit public administrations, which are so vital for the public sector to function smoothly.

Please follow this link to access the full March 2015 edition of the EU Employment and Social Situation Quarterly review, including detailed statistics.

This year’s fist EU Youth Conference, held last week in Riga, concluded on March 26 with the adoption of a set of recommendations for European and EU Member State political leaders on ‘Empowering young people for political participation in democratic life in Europe’. They call on them to take measures:

• to involve young people more systematically in political decision making
• to further develop youth-friendly tools for political participation
• to boost local and direct democracy in order to foster young people’s political engagement.

As a next step, the recommendations will be discussed during the upcoming Education, Youth, Culture and Sport (EYC) Council meeting in Brussels on May 18-19.

Matthäus Frandrejewski, who participated for the CESI Youth in a workshop on ‘Strengthening the role of youth work for political empowerment of all young people’, highlighted the importance of the EU Youth Conference platform as a vital instrument for youngsters to convey their ideas and concerns to policy makers at the highest political level. During the conference in Riga, he noted: “I am glad that the CESI Youth is now represented at the EU Youth Conference for the third consecutive time. A continued participation in this forum is an important tool for us to keep highlighting the desire of young workers to participate in relevant policy discussions.”

The next European Youth Conference will take place in September in Luxembourg, where the CESI Youth hopes to be able to make its voice heard again for the benefit of young workers.

Mr. Uslu thanked CESI and the other participants on behalf of his organisation and underlined the importance of belonging to a European confederation, not least as a mean to promote peaceful and respectful cooperation. CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger stressed that Turkey has become a crucial country for Europe with a strong economy and a major geostrategic importance. He emphasised the need to increase cooperation and to agree on common values for the benefit of workers and democracy as a whole. On the brink of the event, Mr. Heeger and Mr. Uslu intensified the informal talks on a basis of mutual trust.

Policemen and other professional groups gathered in the CESI Security Trade Council stressed how the recent attacks in Paris and Denmark have changed their perception of their professional risk by feeling even more exposed to an unknown danger, e.g. in form of individual terrorists.

The committee’s president Gerrit van der Kamp also pointed out the security and rescue forces’ support on the site of the Germanwings plane crash and thanks them for their work, before observing a minute’s silence for the many victims of the shootings and the crash.

The participants remember that already back then – after the CESI Symposium in Lyon on the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice – the Trade Council has given recommendations on how to integrate the security forces’ experciences in the EU’s policy making in this field.

According to Trade Council’s vice president Stéphanie La Rosa, recent events only show how important it is to stick to these recommendations and to advocate them even further. In any case, when it comes to France, concrete measures have already been taken following the events.

The committee also discussed the underlying topic of radicalisation and prevention of terrorism, which are now in the focus of the European Council’s and the European Parliament’s works, both of which have shown their intentions to step up their efforts. Furthermore, CESI director Bert van Caelenberg presented the initiatives of the Council and the European Commissions, particularly in the field of the former Stockholm Programme.

In view of a CESI@noon round table debate on this topic on 5 May 2015, where CESI gathers police’ and teachers’ as well as EU representatives, the participants agreed to create a catalogue of key claims which are to be submitted to the European Commission and the European Parliament on the occasion of the event. Secretary General Klaus Heeger stressed in this respect how important it is to educated young people and to teach them common values and charged himself with elaborating such catalogue of claims.

Vice-President Hermann Benker reported on the use of so called body cams in Germany, which are used by police forces in special situations. Those allow to review critical situations and to even attenuate aggressive behaviour on both sides. Additionally they can be used in order to assess recordings through citizen’s devices, which are more and more often used to denounce the actions of the police. Benker proposed that the member states fulfil the legal and technical prerequisites that allow – if needed – the use of those cameras by the police.

ATCEUC, the Coordination of the European Air Traffic Controllers’ Unions, has been deeply touched by the tragedy of the Germanwings flight 9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf.

The air traffic controllers expressed their condolences to the families of the victims, passengers and cabin crew alike, and everyone affected.

ATCEUC highlighted that safety is and must be at all times the main goal of air traffic. The ATCEUC Committee Meeting, starting tomorrow in Rome, will reflect on this tragedy, as a tribute to everyone affected.

ATCEUC represents 28 Unions and more than 14,000 Air Traffic Controllers across Europe.

While supporting the idea of a coordinated and large-scale investment plan for Europe, CESI believes that it must be ensured that the EFSI’s performance will not be undermined by the desires of private investors to maximise the short-term returns on their investments. Otherwise, EFSI projects would certainly be pursued only in the relatively advantaged regions and sectors where private investors have good prospects to make quick financial gains.

This rules out most actions in the field of social investments and services of general interest, which are vital for the sustained wellbeing of the society as a whole but which do not usually provide for significant financial profits for private investors in the short-term.

Consequently, CESI calls for the EFSI to be adopted and implemented in such a way that will allow fostered social investments and a reinforced provision of quality services of general interest.

In this context, CESI also regrets the lack of further initiatives at the national and EU-level that highlight the economic and societal benefits of enabling the public sector to provide quality services of general interest for the common good. This is, unfortunately, especially true with regards to the European Semester and the 2015 Annual Growth Survey (AGS), which focus overly on market-oriented investments and cuts to public spending. CESI has severe doubts if setting such priorities will be beneficial for the economies and societies in the long-run and would like to see more commitment by European leaders to stop excessive austerity in public accounts as has been repeatedly advocated througout the European Semester process.

CESI also fully supports and endorses the statement by the European Semester Alliance issued on the occasion of the European Summit of March 19-20.

Central topics discussed during the meeting were EU funding measures as well as ways to achieve a more social Europe that manages to make the idea of European integration more appealing to the citizens again. In this context, Mr Wolff and Mr Heeger spoke up, most notably, in favour of initiatives for a more socially acceptable mobility of workers in the EU and raised ideas on how to fight youth unemployment while at the same time providing new impetuses for an economically competitive Union.

During the meeting, they also voiced concerns about the exclusion of CESI from the European Commission’s recent high-level conference on ‘A new start for social dialogue’, stressing on this occasion that CESI – representing more than 5 million members from 41 national associations in 33 European countries – would clearly welcome if it was, generally, considered and included more systematically in European decision-making procedures.

Reviewing the impacts of Europe’s recent economic crisis on employment in the public sectors in the EU-28 in great detail, the report by EUROFOUND, published in the framework of its European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)*, supports the thesis that the public sectors in Europe were, overall, severely and negatively affected by the recent crisis. For example, it shows that since the start of the crisis in 2008:

• 800,000 jobs (net) have been lost in the EU in the core public sector (public administration) – which has contracted quicker than the overall workforce during that time;
• pay freezes or cuts for public sector workers have been a wide-spread practice in numerous Member States;
• restructuring in the public sectors has, generally, led to a further increase in the prevalence of psychosocial health problems among the workers concerned.

Most importantly, the report found strong evidence that restructuring the public sectors was in many cases “not well prepared” but “carried out in hasty manner” with only “limited” consultation with the social partners.

Please follow this link to if you are interested in reading the full publication. The report will also be presented by EUROFOUND in the context of a CESI symposium in Dublin on June 25-26 2015 on ‘Better anticipate changes and restructuring in public administrations in Europe: the role played by the information and consultation of employees’.

* The European Restructuring monitor (ERM) is EUROFOUND’s publication and information dissemination tool for its analyses on changes in employment generally and restructuring in particular.

FEMM president Kirsten Lühmann deplored that the share of women in the newly elected European institutions didn’t increase significantly. Furthermore she pointed to the maternity leave directive which was supposed to increase the minimum leave period to 18 months. However, since the negotiations have been blocked by the Council, the proposal is likely to be withdrawn by the Commission and to be replaced by a much less ambitious proposal.

Since the European proposal on a quota for leading position hasn’t been pursued by the European legislator, the participants reported if and how corresponding laws have been adopted in their respective countries. All in all they noticed slight advancements, whereas the overall share of women is still too low.

The committee also called upon the European Institutions to make home care less of a burden for those who are concerned most – women. In an ever ageing society women are very often not only those who are in the need for being taken care of, but also the ones who stay at home in order to take care of the elderly. This can have detrimental effects on their professional career and increases the risk of poverty at a later stage. Paola Panzeri from COFACE presented to this effect the organisation’s European Reconciliation Package. The collaboration between CESI and the European Women’s Lobby was presented by Carmen Jaffke, who has been elected in the EWL policy committee.

Margarida Seoane, president of the SOC committee gave an outlook on the situation in her home country Portugal and deplored that youth unemployment is still huge. While the expectations towards the new European Commission are quite high, concrete results are not visible yet.

Sigried Capsar from DG EMPL explained how the Commission under the lead of its president Jean-Claude Juncker intends to boost the Social Dialogue on European level. However, as stated CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger, making Social Dialogue more successful, inclusive and democratic starts with taking all social partners on board, not only the biggest ones. After all, diversity is one of the values of the European Union.

CESI Youth Representative Matthäus Fandrejewski presented his agenda for the CESI youth, stressing that it is important to increase the share of young people in trade union organisations.

At the fringe of the meeting, the representatives of the German organisation dbb Kirsten Lühmann and the Spanish organisation SATSE Jorge Andrada signed a biletaral agreement for the benefit of mobile workers in the health sector, such as Spanish nurses who go to Germany in order to work.

The agreement, which has been elaborated in the framework of the CESI Trade Council health services and is patronised by CESI, is supposed to offer mobile workers in the sector a first aid in case they need support in the country they are moving to and working.

CESI president Wolff and its Secretary General Klaus Heeger congratualed their two member organisations, seeing their cooperation as exemplary for European trade union solidarity.

Kirsten Lühmann, President of CESI’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) makes the following declaration to mark International Women’s Day:

“Even in Europe, International Women’s Day is not just an excuse for bleeding heart liberals to pat themselves on the back. Rather, issues remain which we must take seriously: on average, women still earn over 16 per cent less than men, women in top company posts are still, for the most part, in a minority or nowhere to be seen. In their private lives, too, women mostly have significantly more work to do than their male partners.

Alongside the topics it has cited, the new Commission wants in particular to tackle violence against women with a greater resolve as well as fight ‘harmful practices’ – damaging ‘traditional’ practices such as genital mutilation, forced marriage and honour killings. CESI supports the Commission in these goals and also calls upon the Member States to check what else can be done to protect women.

A study carried out in 2014 by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights presented a sobering picture of the situation in which women find themselves in the 28 EU Member States. According to its findings, one in three women has experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15, 20 per cent have been stalked and half of all women have been confronted with one or several forms of sexual harassment. Such circumstances are absolutely unacceptable and we cannot put up with them.

Against this backdrop, it is encouraging that the European Commission is clearly giving serious thought to the European Union signing up to the Istanbul Convention (‘European Council Agreement on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence’). Furthermore, the agreement has not yet been signed by all EU Member States and has only been ratified in one third of the States. This urgently needs to change.

EU Commissioner for Equal Opportunities Vĕra Jourová is putting together a new equal opportunities strategy which will be ready by the end of this year. CESI will make its position known on the important issues regarding policies on women and will continue to lobby for more equality of opportunities through its own initiatives and proposals.”

CESI welcomes the growing recognition that economic growth must be dealt together with social matters and the demonstrated will of the European Commission for the EU to “achieve a social AAA”, not least by giving social dialogue a fresh start. As recalled by Commissioner Marianne Thyssen, “there cannot be a well-functioning economy market without a well-functioning social dialogue”.

“Yes, social partners are best placed to suggest and negotiate solutions to current issues, because of their direct link to realities and their closeness to workers in all sectors”, Klaus Heeger, Secretary General of CESI, agreed. “They must therefore be at the forefront and be more involved in European policies, including in addressing the key challenges Europe is facing.”

Yet Klaus Heeger sharply criticised the policy of closed doors: “If the overall aim consist in better associating social partners in EU and national policy making, you better associate them all. Excluding millions of workers neither contributes to the strengthening of the social dimensions nor does it create a climate of trust and partnership. “

President Juncker himself recalled this week the birth of social dialogue thirty years ago and that although so much has changed Val Duchesse must be a source of inspiration for the social dialogue of today.

Referring to that, Klaus Heeger underlined that in order to rediscover the European social dimension, CESI is, today more than ever, called upon and ready to contribute actively to a genuine social dimension.

“All workers count”, CESI Secretary General underlined, “and those who do not recognise that, do strike a blow to that very social dimension they want to establish”.

In the context of growing radicalisation, the Presidium particularly emphasised the crucial role of security forces in protecting citizens, their fundamental rights and democracy.

To safeguard freedoms and values it is essential to protect those who protect, the Presidium concluded.

You can read the Presidium’s communiqué here.

TiSA, not as known as the highly mediatised Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), is one of the largest trade agreement ever negotiated. Formally started in 2013, it is very wide reaching (a priori no sector is excluded except for the core governmental one) and concerns 23 members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), including the European Union, representing in total 70% of the world trade in services.

Regarding the fear among many European citizens about the unclear consequences of TiSA on public services and the possibility that it lowers social and labour standards, the debate at CESI intended to clarify the issues at stake. On the one hand, CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger and Social Platform President Heather Roy expressed their respective worries, while on the other, Viviane Reding, as EP rapporteur for TiSA, and Mr. Iruarrizaga in his capacity as chief negotiator of the European Commission underlined that TiSA would neither lead to lower protection levels nor to privatisations of any kind.

According to Viviane Reding, the agreement is unique and very important for Europe. Indeed – if well negotiated – it would be good for European services. However, public services should be excluded because they are “jewels rooted in our DNA” and their protection is a constitutional obligation enshrined in European treaties and protocols.

Heather Roy, representing both users and providers of public services, raised her concerns that public services may be increasingly treated as commodity, and that the quality of services may be suffering from competition. She also stressed the need for clarity and safeguards in the agreement in order to ensure the accessibility of public services for territorial and social cohesion.

Ms. Reding underlined that TiSA as such could and would never contradict EU and national laws. With regards to transparency, she pointed out that almost all documents are now available, except for the council´s mandate. She stressed that full transparency is the best basis for negotiations and all interested parties, including the civil society and the trade unions should have the occasion to share their views.

According to Ignacio Iruarrizaga, TiSA chief negotiator of the European Commission, the agreement is “an area where there is to win”, as the agreement, similar to the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) negotiated 20 years ago, comprises several restrictions to protect public services. “Public services are not sold out in any way, the provision of public services remains fully in the hands of local, regional and national governments.”

Klaus Heeger, Secretary General of the CESI, highlighted the importance of social and labour standards to prevent social dumping. Referring to the potential threat TiSA may have on public services, he highlighted that free trade -as consequence of freedom and democracy- is basically good, but that trade deals de facto often lead to liberalisation and privatisation, which puts them per se in a strained relationship to public services. Great care is therefore needed and it is essential to make sure that public services of general interest are safe and unequivocally excluded from the scope of the agreement.

To conclude, the participants agreed on the necessity to clarity the scope of the agreement. Politicians, the civil society, trade unions and the media should therefore reach consensus on a service trade agreement which would leave protection standards and public services untouched.

All participants therefore highlighted the fact, that a general exemption clause for public services would represent a major step forward in establishing trust and support for the agreement.

During the meeting, which has been opened by CESI president Romain Wolff, the participants discussed the institutional and political developments on the European level due to the election of the European parliament, the appointment of a new European Commission, current developments such as the Ukraine crisis or the terrorist attacks in Paris. In respect to the latter, the Secretary General of CESI’s French member organisation Alliance Police Nationale Jean-Claude Delage thanked the other organisations and the CESI Secretariat for their moral support.

Regarding the new set-up of the European institutions, the commitment of European Commission president Juncker for an enhanced social dialogue revived hope and expectations of the participants who have seen how social dialogue in the member states has suffered during the crisis. For this purpose, Stefano Martinelli, European Commission expert for the European Social Dialogue committees for Local and Regional Administrations as well as Central Administrations, talked about the important issues for the European Social Dialogue in 2015.

According to Martinelli, the European Commission intends to more actively include the European Social partners when defining priorities and methods of the future European Social Dialogue. Amongst the concrete measures foreseen are a better involvement of social partners in the economic governance and in the European policy making. Also, he showed himself aware of the fact that CESI – as consequence of the representativeness study for local and regional administrations – aims at fully joining the respective European Social Dialogue committee.

Concerning the Trade Councils and Commissions, CESI’s Secretary General Klaus Heeger and Director Bert Van Caelenberg presented the outcome of the work of the last years and presented a positive mid-term review of the actions taken during the 2 years after the last congress. Heeger called upon the Trade Council presidents to show more initiative and to take over more responsibilities concerning the organisation, execution and follow up of the committees’ work in order to make them even more performant.

The Secretariat furthermore presented the work programme of the European Commission which will serve – although not exclusively – as a guideline for CESI’s actions. The investment package, the Europe 2020 mid-term review or mobility of workers etc. are of high interest for CESI. But also other topics, such as TiSA, social investment etc. stay of utmost importance. The Commission and Trade Council presidents afterwards pointed out their priorities for the upcoming year, which represent a wide variety of topics (such as trade union pluralism, women in management positions or violence against employees in public services) that will be discussed and followed up during and after the committees’ meetings.

The president of the CESI Europe Academy Emilio Fatovic presented this year’s project on information and consultation of workers, the outcome of which should contribute to better management and anticipation of restructuring in the public sector. The corresponding seminar is going to take place in Dublin on 24-26 June 2015.

“First and foremost, we wish to express our condolences to the victims and their relatives”, stated CESI President Wolff. “However, beyond the human tragedy this event has caused, the impact of this attack is practically impossible to measure. The Republic of France and the entire democratic world has been shaken at its very foundations. Now, we must use all our strength to fight for the maintenance of our values of freedom.”

Secretary General Heeger pointed to the specific meaning of this event for trade unions: “Special protection must also be provided to those whose role it is to defend our freedom and democracy. Of course, this includes above all the press, in its role as the personification of a pluralistic society and freedom of opinion. However, security forces and law enforcement bodies must also be supported without reservations in their fight against terrorism”.

According to Heeger, the challenges for security forces and law enforcement bodies are tremendous: fighting radicalised anti-democratic forces while at the same time resisting populist, xenophobic and racist movements in society demands unconditional belief in and commitment to our fundamental values. And not least full support from society.

If this balance is not achieved at the end of the day, the ones who want to remove our model based on values of freedom will have won, the President and the Secretary General warned.

About the symposium

Through the expertise in CESI’s Central Administration Trade Council, the second project for 2014 will focus on the role of tax administrations throughout the economic and financial crisis in Europe. CESI works hard to strengthen the fight against tax fraud and the improvement of services provided to citizens through tax administrations, as well as improving working conditions in the sector. During the crisis however, what role has there been for taxation in Europe? What impact has the crisis had?

The results of the project, gathered in part from the seminar taking place in Brussels from 9-10 October 2014, will be disseminated to taxation human resource managers throughout Europe.

The brochures for the October 2014 seminar can be read in English, French and German.

Synthesis: FR / EN / DE / ES / IT

Presentations/Speeches:

– Emilo FATOVIC, 09.10.2014 (FR)

– François GORIS, 09.10.2014 (NL)

– Jonathan LEIGH PEMBERTON (BEPS Action Plan), 09.10.2014 (EN)

– Donato RAPONI, 09.10.2014 (EN)

– Jonathan LEIGH PEMBERTON (Tax Administration 2013),09.10.2014 (EN)

– Jan NØRNER, 09.10.2014 (EN)

– Fernand MULLER, 09.10.2014 (FR)

– Nancy PEETERS, 09.10.2014 (EN)

– Dirk DIERICKX, 09.10.2014 (EN)

– Tracy KAYE, 10.10.2014 (EN)

– Romain WOLFF (FR)

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ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

“This digital revolution is drastically changing the world. Public administrations are keeping up with the trend by constantly adapting their online service supply in order to stay in close touch with the users.”

Emilio Fatovic, President of Europe Academy

By engaging  CESI’s Trade Councils for Security, Health and Education, the seminar covered new technologies in Europe’s public sector. The seminar took place in Tallinn, Estonia from 26-27 June 2014. An advanced country in terms of new technologies with 78% of the population using the internet and 75% households with internet access, Estonia provided the ideal backdrop for debate. With the Estonian Minister for Economic Affairs and Communication, Urve Palo, opening the seminar, the e-State in Estonia gave an insight into how new technologies can be used in the public sector.

The project aimed to uncover best practices in these new developments and allowed members to share their experiences of the changes that have occurred for public sector workers as a result of new technologies. A booklet to exchange best practices and a charter of recommendations will soon be published.

The Symposium’s Programme and Speakers’ List can be read in EN, FR and DE.

FINAL BROCHURE with a Charter of principles for the participative and responsible inclusion of workers in the set-up and use of ICT in the public sector in Europe: EN, DE, FR, ES, IT

PRESENTATIONS/SPEECHES

Emilio Fatovic, Europe Academy President, Opening address

Franco Accordino, European Commission on Connecting people to policy making: the Futurium experiment

Françoise Berthoud, Directrice du Groupement EcoInfo on Are dematerialising procedures always a good thing?

Miquel Estapé, Open Administration of Catalonia Consortium on Open Administration for Businesses in Catalonia

Carlos Fernandez Guerra,  Responsible for social media for the Spanish National Police on Servicio público 2.0

Elisabeth Grosdhomme Lulin, Director General, Paradigmes et caetera on Web 2.0: The users contribute to the improvement of public services

Ralf Martin, Project Manager,  Central Data Processing of financial management Koblenz on The European IT skills passport

Arthur Mickoleit, OECD on Digital Government: OECD policy recommendation and the role of social media

Sergejus Muravjovas, Executive Director, Transparency International Lithuania on Action Tank’s Perspective on New Technologies

Rauna Nerelli, Ministry of Justice, Finland on e-participation and transparency in the decision making process

Robbie Parish, Scottish Government on Digital Scotland

Elena Vio, Arsenàl.IT Veneto’s Research Centre for eHealth Innovation on Example of the way new technology is used in the field of health

Ioannis Yallouros, European Disability Forum, Executive Committee Member, Use of ICT for a better service for users with a disability

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The relevant part in the INTA committee report calls on the TTIP negotiators and the European Commission in particular “to build on the joint statement [of the 20th of March by Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and US Trade Representative Michael Froman regarding the exclusion of public services in EU and US trade agreements] reflecting the negotiators’ clear commitment to exclude current and future Services of General Interest as well as Services of General Economic Interest from the scope of application of TTIP, (including but not limited to water, health, social services, social security systems and education), to ensure that national and if applicable local authorities retain the full right to introduce, adopt, maintain or repeal any measures with regards to the commissioning, organisation, funding and provision of public services as provided in the Treaties as well as in the EU’s negotiating mandate; this exclusion should apply irrespective of how the services are provided and funded.”

As a European trade union federation representing several million public sector workers in many European countries, CESI has for long worked for a full exclusion of public services from forthcoming trade agreements such as TTIP. Together with the Social Platform, it launched an initiative to insert a ‘Gold standard clause’ in these agreements to fully and unrestrictedly protect public services from any further open market pressures.

In this context, CESI’s Secretary General Klaus Heeger welcomed today’s INTA committee vote to recommend to exclude public services from TTIP: “I am glad that the efforts we put into our gold standard clause initiative yield results. The clause on public services in the INTA committee report reflects much of what such a gold standard clause could look like. I am confident that the plenary follow the INTA committee vote on this. Then, it will be hard for the Commission to not respect the European Parliament’s preference on public services in its TTIP negotiations. After all, parliament will have the last word when it comes to approving TTIP on behalf of the EU.”

The plenary vote on the INTA committee report is scheduled to take place on June 10.

ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

• Lyon, 27-28 June 2013
• Programme and Speakers : EN / FR /  DE
• Brochure on the “Area of Freedom, Security and Justice” for security and justice workers EN / FR / DE / IT / ES
• Post-Stockholm Resolution : EN / FR / DE / IT / ES / NL

PRESENTATIONS/SPEECHES:

• BLEY Guy (FR)
• BÖHM Klaus Michael (DE)
• DICKSON David (EN)
• GINDENSPERGER Anne/ULMER Alexander (FR)
• JANSSENS Liesbeth (EN)
• MARION William (FR)
• PEUCH Eric (FR)
• PROUVEUR Renaud (EN)
• QUILLÉ Michel (FR)
• STESSENS Guy (EN)
• VAN DE RIJT Wouter (FR)
• VAN HEEL Duco (EN)

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ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

• Hamburg, 10-11 October 2013
• Synthesis: EN / FR / DE / ES / IT
• Brochures : EN / FR / DE

PRESENTATIONS/SPEECHES:

• FATOVIC Emilio, 10.10 (IT)
• SCHOLZ Olaf, 10.10 (EN)
• HUERTA MELCHOR Oscar, 10.10 (EN)
• PÉREZ Javier J., 10.10 (EN)
• VAN MULLIGEN Dirk, 10.10 (EN)
• PAOLILLO Manuel, 10.10 (EN)
• LUCKS Christoph, 10.10 (DE)
• SOOD Krishan, 10.10 (EN)
• REYES DIEZ Esther, 11.10 (ES)
• MORALEDA ALDEA Santiago, 11.10 (EN)
• SAUER-SCHNIEBER Andrea, 11.10 (DE)
• KAMOUCHE Hakim, 11.10 (FR)
• PRINCE Sophie, 11.10 (FR)
• DRUART Jacques, 11.10 (EN)

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ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

• Warsaw, 11-12 October 2012
• Brochure: EN / FR / DE
• Study (short) : EN /  FR / DE / ES / IT
• Study (complete) : EN

PRESENTATIONS/SPEECHES:

• BONI Michal, 11.10 (PL)
• BAUBY Pierre, 11.10 (FR)
• RODRIGUES Stéphane, 11.10 (FR)
• REDLICH Matthias, 11.10 (EN)
• BURNETT Susan, 11.10 (EN)
• CLEUTINX Christian, 11.10 (EN)
• CHIRU Epsică, 11.10 (EN)
• EUSTHATOPOULOS Yannis, 11.10 (FR)
• BROLIS Mauro, 11.10 (IT)
• SIIKAVIRTA Kristian, 12.10 (EN)
• WEBER Harald, 12.10 (EN)
• RUANO José-Manuel, 12.10 (FR)
• JOKIVUORI Pertti, 12.10 (EN)
• DAVIES Jim, 12.10 (EN)
• DE CONINCK Hans, 12.10 (EN)
• WOLFF Romain, 12.10 (FR)

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ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

• Luxembourg, 28-29 June 2012
• Brochure : EN / FR / DE
• Final Brochure :  EN / FR / DE / ES / IT

PRESENTATIONS/SPEECHES:

• BOSSAERT Danielle, 28.06 (EN)
  Administrative Cooperation in the EU Member States: Towards a Common European Administrative Space?
• GENGLER Claude, 29.06 (FR)
  Une coopération transfrontalière basée sur l’échange de «bonnes pratiques»: le réseau GEPACO
• GLOSS Wilhelm, 29.06 (DE)
  Conclusions
• GRION Milena, 29.06 (EN)
  EL4PA: Euro Learning for Public Adminstration – Training in the field of cross-border cooperation
• GUILLERMO RAMIREZ Martín, 28.06 (EN)
  Taking stock of Cross-Border-Cooperation in Europe – The Association of European Border Regions
• HALINK Ruud, 29.06 (FR)
  Coopération européenne pour les langues voisines
• HALSDORF Jean-Marie, 28.06. (FR)
  Discours du Ministre
• LIRÓN LAGO Juan José, 29.06 (EN)
  The “Galicia – North of Portugal” Euroregion
• MÜLLER Christian, 28.06 (EN)
  The Internal Market Information System
• REUTER Erny, 28.06 (FR/DE)
  Allocution
• SINNER Jean-Claude, 28.06 (FR)
  Les programmes européens: soutien à la coopération transfrontalière et transnationale
• WOLFF Romain, 28.06. (FR)
  Intervention sur la coopération fiscale

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