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Cooperatives Europe
 
- Social Partner Program: Consolidation -
 
Regional Seminar Nicosia – Cyprus
 
30th& 31stOctober 2008
 
Opening Ceremony 
 The seminar opened with a public meeting for Co-operative societies' representatives fromacross Cyprus. (120+ participants). The General manager of the Cooperative Central Bank,Erotokritos Chlorakiotis and Dame Pauline Green, co-President of Cooperatives Europe,welcomed the participants and explained the importance of the seminar given the currentfinancial & economic crisis Europe and world is facing. The Republic of Cyprus Government ministers, Sotiroula Charalambous - Minister of Labourand Social Insurance and Antonis Paschalides- Minister of Commerce, Industry, Commerceand Tourism extolled the value of the strong social dialogue in Cyprus and the contributionthat co-operatives make to the economic and social well-being of Cyprus. They bothwelcomed the existing input from the cooperative sector in the country's social dialogue andlooked forward to an enhanced contribution from coops.
 
 The Commissioner of the Authority for the Supervision and Development of CooperativeSocieties in Cyprus, Constantinos Lyras outlined the developments in the sector since joiningthe European Union and looked forward to further development that would broaden thescope of the co-operative enterprise model in the countries economic and social life.
 
Minutes of the Seminar 
List of participants:
 
Ray Collins (chair)– Cooperatives Europe
 
Liliya Veneva – CCU(Bulgaria)
 
Petra Ivanova – CCU
 
Stiliana Staleva – CCU
 
Vesselina Starcheva – Confedederation of Labour Podkrepa (Bulgaria)Marie Zvolska – DACR(Czech Republic)
 
Vladimir Matousek – Czeck Moravian TU Confederation
 
Nikos Gkotsinas – Paseges(Greece)
 
Zsuzsanna Puskas – Afeosz(Hungary)
 
Artemis Toumazi – Cyprus Cooperative Women's Bank (Cyprus)Georgios Odysseos – SEK (Cyprus)Pavlos Loukaides – Authority for Supervision and Development of Cooperative Societies(Cyprus)Andreas Christodoulou – Authority for Supervision and Development of Cooperative Societies(Cyprus)Gianna Perra – Confcooperative(Italy)
 
Pauline Green – Cooperatives EuropeRainer Schlüter – Cooperatives Europe
 
Marc Noel – Cooperatives Europe
 
The second out of the 4 regional seminars took place in Nicosia the 30thand 31st October 2008 and grouped the Eastern European countries, plus Cyprus and Greece, of the EU(Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Cyprus and Greece). The objective of these seminars is to make a qualitative analysis of the experiences and added value provided by the co-operative enterprises and their employers’ organisations in the socialdialogue with the trade unions. Representatives of the co-operative organisations and tradeunions of the countries concerned are invited to present the situation of social dialogue and industrial relations in their countries and how it could be further developed.
 
Introduction
 Ray Collins, responsible for Communications at Cooperatives Europe, welcomed the differentparticipants individually and introduced them briefly to the group. The participants were fromBulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Greece and Cyprus, as well as an observer from Italy,being in charge of co-organising the next regional seminar in Rome.Marc Noël, responsible for Finance and Projects at Cooperatives Europe, highlighted theobjectives of the "Social Partner Program - Consolidation" (SPP-C): this program, being part of the EU support program for social dialogue, and co-financed by the DG Employment, SocialAffairs and Equal Opportunities, aims to improve the qualitative knowledge about thecontents of the social dialogue between co-operative enterprises and workers’representation at different levels and in different countries of the European Union. The Social Dialogue is an essential part of the European social model, being the main placefor joint initiatives and negotiations between Trade Unions and Employer organisations. Therefore, this program is a priority for Cooperatives Europe, intending to become a social
 
partner and participate within the EU cross-sector dialogue.Further, Marc Noël explained that the program is a follow-up of the successful previous SocialPartner project. This program took place in 2006-2007, demonstrating therepresentativeness and the participation in European sectoral & national SD by the membersof Cooperatives Europe, which are the conditions for a European Employer organisation tobecome a European Social Partner.
 
As the European Commission consideried the SPP project to be an interesting and successfulinitiative it was requested to deepen the results of the first project and introduce the SPP-Consolidation program. The challenges for this new project are therefore to analyse thedifference and added value provided by cooperative organisations, to focus on the work withtrade unions and to determine the themes being discussed in the different national &European sector social dialogues. Additionally, counterparts for the social dialogue in thedifferent countries have to be identified, a database of Trade Unionists & Co-operators hasto be built up and a « SD Competence Group » has to be launched, being a reference groupfor SD topics related to cooperatives in Europe and supported by a guide on best practicesand a quality report of the different countries.
 
EU Social Dialogue
Rainer Schlüter, Director of Cooperatives Europe, explained, that Cooperatives Europe is notyet present in the European Social Dialogue at a cross-sector level, even though there is aspecific difference with other employer organisations. The aim is not only to negotiate andcollaborate with the other European social partners, but also to integrate something differentand to focus on the possible added value which might improve the life of citizens. But asalways, the social partners at European level are only interested in starting a dialogue if ithas already be opened at national level. The starting point is then of course to know how thesocial dialogue is functioning at national level, and if the cooperative organisations are forexample present as a separate organisation or are integrated within the other representativeemployer organisations.
 
 The results of the first Social Partner program were then presented by Rainer Schlüter inmore detail: the representativeness of Cooperatives Europe in the EU – present in all EUcountries and representing around 80% of the organised co-operative movement, equal to142 co-operative organisations, 147.500 individual enterprises, 107 million members and 4,4million jobs – and the participation of the co-operative organisations within their respectivenational social dialogue. This participation had been analysed concerning the implication inthe sectoral or intersectoral national SD, the frequency of participation and the nature of theagreements taken. This opened the door for the next step of analysis, being the added valuethat the co-operative organisations bring and could bring into the social dialogue.
 
Artemis Toumazi, Chief Executive of the Cyrus Cooperative Women's Bank, stated, that thecooperative enterprise might be again a big player in the future, and especially the banks,because of the financial crisis. Therefore, the participation of a representative organisationwithin the social dialogue at European level is very important, to show and enhance thepresence of this different type of enterprise.
 
Rainer Schlüter explained the fact that different models of integrating the cooperatives atthe European level are possible. For example the UEAPME, the umbrella organisation for the
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