“Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!” remains the main goal of social policy in all of the eight participating countries at the first employment Ministerial of the Stability Pact’s Social Cohesion Initiative. Ministers signed the Bucharest Declaration 31 October 2003, whereby they committed their Governments to promote entrepreneurship, to create incentives for job creation and training, to foster mobility of labour and to bring undeclared work into the regular fold, while keeping a vigilant eye on the social consequences of the reform process. “By agreeing on a region-wide process of adopting EU and international standards on employment, the countries are about to introduce another piece of European “normality” to the Southeast European transition economies” Special Co-ordinator Erhard Busek lauded the important step.  The event was hosted by Romanian Minister of Labour, Social Solidarity and Family, Ms. Elena Dumitru, and co-organised by the Council of Europe and the Belgian Government.

Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, and Serbia-Montenegro pledged to converge towards the objectives and guidelines of EU employment policies, to implement the Council of Europe standards in employment matters and to make the core elements of the International Labour Office’s Global Employment Agenda operational in their countries.

The Council of Europe and the Federal Public Service of Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue of Belgium were in a position to co-organise this event only after one year of meticulous preparations involving the main international organisations dealing with social policy reform in SEE, such as the CoE, the European Commission, the ILO, the World Bank, the social partners, governmental officials of the SEE countries and representatives of interested donor countries.

The Social Cohesion Initiative of the Stability Pact, started in late 2000, aims to take better into account the social dimension in the transition process the economies of SEE are going through, introducing the necessary elements of social dialogue, including a meaningful representation of trade unions and entrepreneurs in the domestic and international platforms, which are typically present in today’s market economies in Western Europe. The SCI is led by Ms. Miet Smet, a current Member of the European Parliament and a former Minister of Employment and Labour in the Belgian Government from 1992 to 1999.

Declaration of the Conference of the Ministers responsible for Employment of the countries of SEE, Bucharest, 30-31 October 2003