Countries with a high rate of absolute poverty, ie a large number of inhabitants who cannot satisfy even the basic needs of life, are not needed by the European Union as an additional burden, said the associate of the Center for Democracy Foundation, Ivan Sekulovic.
“In Serbia today, every fourth person lives at risk of poverty, but the authorities do not want to see the real social picture of society and postpone the introduction of a social card system or similar solutions for years,” Sekulovic told the Nezavisnost trade union portal.
He added that the latest Annual Report of the European Commission (EC), in the part on Chapter 19 dedicated to social policy and employment, states that Serbia still has a lot of work to do.
Sekulovic, who was a member of the negotiating group for Chapter 19, said that most should be done in the field of labor law, but also in employment policy, improvement of social dialogue, safety and protection at work, social protection.
He said that “perhaps the most difficult situation is in the inspection bodies, because the number of inspectors is decreasing, instead of increasing.”
In addition, as he said, “the professional capacity in the field of preparation for the European Social Fund is falling, and that is a potential source of non-refundable funds for our country of as much as 200 million euros a year.”
Serbia’s labor legislation is only partially in line with EU rules
As he said, the labor legislation of Serbia is only partially harmonized with the EU rules, so Serbia should pass a law on strike, new laws on labor and protection of health and safety at work, to harmonize the Law on Inspections with the conventions of the International Labor Organization.
“According to the Action Plan, the Labor Law should be harmonized with 14 directives, but in reality that number is even higher. The drafting of the Action Plan lasted for four years, and in the meantime, some new directives were adopted, such as the one on the balance between work and private life, which is not included in the plan,” stated Sekulovic.
In that context, as he said, the EU is a ‘moving target’, and similarly, the International Labor Organization is constantly improving its standards, so last year a convention on violence and harassment at work was adopted, and Serbia has not yet ratified the increasingly relevant International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
According to him, it will be especially difficult to harmonize different interests when the amendments to the Labor Law are approached.
The EC, as in previous years, points out that, according to him, there is no progress in social dialogue, and especially points to the weak participation of social partners in creating public policies.
In his analysis of the Draft Strategy for the period 2019-2025 had numerous remarks and suggestions, and among other things pointed out that “in Serbia, no institution or organization conducts a systematic and proactive assessment of the population’s need for social protection.”
That, as he said, is one of the strategies that the society needs the most to prepare for dealing with crises, and it expired at least seven years ago.
“Even before that, it was practically a ‘dead’ document because the competent institutions were not guided by its content, nor did they report on its implementation,” said Sekulovic.
According to him, the adoption of the new strategy does not stem directly from the EU accession process, but it is connected with the increased attention that the EU began to pay to these issues even before the pandemic.
This, as he said, is clearly expressed in the European Pillar of Social Rights, whose principles include, among other things, the right of workers to social protection and the right of all those who do not have enough means to live to adequate benefits that guarantee a dignified life.
In Serbia, where every fourth person lives at risk of poverty, the authorities, according to Sekulovic, obviously do not want to see the real social picture of society, because they have been delaying the introduction of a social card system or a similar solution for years.
Progress in employment policy
The EC sees progress in employment policy, but also notes that the long-term unemployed continue to “face serious challenges to integrate into the labor market”.
Sekulovic said that the EC pointed out that the budget support for active employment measures was reduced in 2020, and that only 28 percent of the total number of unemployed who were registered with the National Employment Service had access to those measures.
“The EC is quite ‘squinting’ at our omissions or, at the very least, negligence to improve the situation of all population groups on the labor market. The comments are mostly reduced to labor market indicators, and it does not go into what, in fact, generates such results,” said Sekulovic.
He added that this is a reflection of the conflicting interests of different parts of the Union, because some members, such as Germany and Austria, like the constant influx of labor from Serbia, and the poor socio-economic and political situation in Serbia is one of the strongest factors.
“Therefore, the effects of, for example, the Law on Dual Education, which threatens to take generations of young people to low education and cheap and unworthy work for the rest of their lives, are not commented on, either in our country for foreign companies or in EU countries,” said Sekulovic.
The fact that the budget for active labor market measures is being reduced again, as he said, “does not shake anyone anymore, because in essence almost no one believes in employment policy anymore, because more and more transactions are negotiated at the highest level, between governments.”
In this year’s report, the EC paid much more attention to gender equality in general, including employment, and pointed out that Serbia, as expected, lags behind EU member states in most parameters, which is shown, for example, by the fact that even four years after the Action Plan.
Sekulovic stated that the Law on Financial Support to Families with Children was a step in the opposite direction from what was needed, because many women were left without compensation that would guarantee them a dignified life, BizLife reports.
