scholarly journals Social Dialogue in Public Sector Reflection about Hungarian and Slovenian approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zvone Vodovnik ◽  
Aniko Noemi Turi

The process of last years expended enlargement of the European Union leads EU governmental bodies towards enacting new European documents. These documents must be considered as legal bases for making the EU the most dynamic and competitive economy in the world being capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. In the area of the EU legislation the social dialogue must be regarded as an important issue. For time being the EU documents regulate some elements of social dialogue in private sector however, the social dialogue in public sector is still outside of the EU regulation. The paper elaborates a comparative view between two Member States such as Hungary and Slovenia by exploring and analyzing EU industrial relations, and the relationship between the industrial relations of these Member States. It is evident that the EU enlargement has further increased this diversity, and the EU industrial relations in many parts distinguish from national industrial relations. This article analyses the process of the legislative activities at the EU legislative bodies, as well as in the national legislations of Hungary and Slovenia. It emphasizes also the concept of EU industrial relations and shows, which are the frames of the social dialogue in public sector of Hungary and Slovenia.

Author(s):  
Frank Vandenbroucke

This contribution argues for a truly reciprocal social investment pact for Europe: member states should be committed to policies that respond to the need for social investment; simultaneously, member states’ efforts in this direction—notably efforts by those in a difficult budgetary context—should be supported in a tangible way. Social investment is a policy perspective that should be based on a broad consensus between people who may entertain certain disagreements regarding the level of their empirical and/or normative understanding of the social world. For that reason, the expression of an ‘overlapping consensus’ is used for delineating social investment advocacy. Data on education spending show that we are far removed from a social investment perspective at the European Union (EU) level. This underscores the fact that social investment advocates need to clearly consider the role the EU has to play in social investment progress.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Sergejs Stacenko ◽  
Biruta Sloka

AbstractThe article will show major dimensions in the experience of EU Member States that could be shared with the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. The framework of the study is the EU concept of trade unions in social dialogue and social partnership in the public sector. This study outlines the concept of social dialogue as a core element of industrial relations and will focus on industrial relations specifically in the public sector. The authors have elaborated the approach to industrial relations and social dialogue taking into account comparative approach to definitions provided by international institutions such as ILO and OECD, as well as institutions in the EU and Latvia. Latvia is also a case study for Eastern Partnership countries as these countries and their trade unions are in a transition period from socialist structures to structures that possess liberal economies. Trade unions in these countries are members of the International Trade Union Confederation. The major transformation that trade unions underwent from being part of the socialist system and becoming an independent institution since Latvia regained independence in 1991 has been studied. The paper discusses the current developments related to the position of Latvian Free Trade Union Federation in the system of decision-making process related to the public administration management. Finally, the prospective role of trade unions in the EU and in Latvia is analysed and possible revitalisation of trade union is discussed. This approach could be applied to the Eastern Partners of the EU.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002085232110600
Author(s):  
Karoline Helldorff ◽  
Johan Christiaens

This paper analyses the powers and competences of the EU to standardise public sector accounting of the member states and to take other EU action in the field of public sector accounting. We argue that public sector accounting forms part of the administrative organisation of the member states that is not a core EU competence. EU initiatives such as the European Public Sector Accounting Standards project, which aim to increase transparency and comparability, therefore need to follow the rules set out for administrative matters in general. The study reveals on the one hand that EU actions are essentially limited to voluntary cooperation and influences of other policy areas. But on the other hand, it shows that they do not need to be limited to the initiatives currently driven by Eurostat. Points for practitioners The future of the European Public Sector Accounting Standards project is uncertain. However, it is very unlikely that it will take the shape of a top-down set of readymade EU accounting standards that will force public administrations to adjust their inner workings. Public sector accounting is not (yet) a (typical) European policy, but simply a national one that the EU can support. The EU initiative can be considered as an opportunity for collaboration and knowledge sharing on how to increase transparency of public sector accounting.


Author(s):  
Mary Daly

Social policy has a particular character and set of associated politics in the European Union (EU) context. There is a double contestation involved: the extent of the EU’s agency in the field and the type of social policy model pursued. The former is contested because social policy is typically and traditionally a matter of national competence and the latter because the social policy model is crucial to economic and market development. Hence, social policy has both functional and political significance, and EU engagement risks member states’ capacity to control the social fate of their citizens and the associated resources, authority, and power that come with this capacity. The political contestations are at their core territorially and/or social class based; the former crystalizes how wide and extensive the EU authority should be in social policy and the latter a left/right continuum in regard to how redistributive and socially interventionist EU social policy should be. Both are the subject of a complicated politics at EU level. First, there is a diverse set of agents involved, not just member states and the “political” EU institutions (Parliament and Council) but the Commission is also an important “interested” actor. This renders institutional politics and jockeying for power typical features of social policymaking in the EU. Second, one has to break down the monolith of the EU institutions and recognize that within and among them are actors or units that favor a more left or right position on social policy. Third, actors’ positions do not necessarily align on the two types of contestation (apart perhaps from the social nongovernmental organizations and to a lesser extent employers and business interests). Some actors who favor an extensive role for social policy in general are skeptical about the role of the EU in this regard (e.g., trade unions, some social democratic parties) while others (some sectors of the Commission) wish for a more expansive EU remit in social policy but also support a version of social policy pinned tightly to market and economic functions. In this kind of context, the strongest and most consistent political thrust is toward a type of EU social policy that is most clearly oriented to enabling the Union’s economic and market-related objectives. Given this and the institutional set-up, the default position in EU social policy is for a market-making social policy orientation on the one hand and a circumscribed role for the EU in social policy on the other.


Geografie ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Veronika Tománková

This paper provides an analysis of the public opinion in the EU countries concerning further enlargement. Public opinion plays an important role in the current integration processes and is an integral part of the research concerning the European Union. The differentiation in the support for the EU enlargement across 25 countries can be explained by the multivariate LISREL (linear structural equations) analysis that makes possible to identify a causal system through the explanatory model. The model includes structural and public opinion variables in the set of the twenty-five EU member states. Multivariate statistical analysis shows a low public opinion support for the EU enlargement in rich states and, on the other hand, a clear support in a group of post-communist member states.


Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton

This chapter focuses on the variations in cleavage politics across the European Union member states. The analyses compare the structure of issue positions across nations to see if the set of issues defining the economic and cultural cleavages are comparable. While there is some cross-national variation, both cleavages are evident across the European Union. The social group positions on both cleavages are also broadly similar across nations. The chapter then examines the social correlates of cleavage positions to see if factors such as the economic structure or the religious composition of societies affect group alignments. The results emphasize the commonality of the basic patterns for the EU overall to the pattern in specific member states. The analyses are primarily based on the 2009 European Election Study.


2012 ◽  
Vol 48 (No. 11) ◽  
pp. 481-484
Author(s):  
R. Werner ◽  
R. Zuzák

Countries associated in the European Union pay great attention to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. At the same time, however, the member states are concerned that following the EU enlargement strong migration flows on the part of new members are likely to occur. Therefore, it is in the interests of the member states to learn whether the citizens of candidate countries are internally motivated to run their own businesses and whether suitable conditions have been created, i. e. whether there are any factors negatively affecting the establishment of small enterprises. To this end, an extensive survey was carried out in the Czech Republic aimed at the above mentioned issues and at identifying favourable and unfavourable factors in the process of small enterprise establishment in transition economies, using the Czech Republic as an example. 


Author(s):  
Christopher H Bovis

In the European Union, public procurement refers to all contractual relations for supplies, works, and services between public-sector authorities of Member States as well as entities operating as utilities in Member States and the private sector. Public procurement by EU Member States accounts for €1 trillion, representing 20 per cent of the EU gross domestic product (GDP).


Author(s):  
Alberto Martinelli

The essay starts with a critical analysis of the most relevant theories of nationalism in the social sciences and addresses questions such as the emergence of the nation and its ideology-nationalism-that is framed into the broader process of modernization; the intersections between the concepts of nationalism, nation and state; the ambivalent relation between nationalism and democracy; the dual historical root of European nationalism and its transformations in to-day globalized world. Then the focus of the analysis is shifted on the present state of the European Union, and more specifically on the two basic contradictions of European political integration: first, the building of a supranational, multicultural union that makes use of nation states as its bulding blocs, but pretends to get free from the connected nationalisms; second, the transfer by member states to the supranational level of growing portions of their national sovereignty without an equivalent transfer of loyalty and committment by their citizens to the supranational institutions. Finally, the author argues for an effective strategy to build a real supranational union-that is seen as the best way to face the challenges of the contemporay world- through bold reforms of the EU political architecture and the strenghtening of a European identity, a strategy that can also block the resurgence of aggressive nationalism in several EU member states.


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