Representatives of the Norwegian project partners, branch and regional organizations – members of BIA, as well as trade union representatives of CITUB and other participants took part in the final conference held in Grand Hotel Sofia, 30 Jan.

For many years BIA and CITUB have been partnering on bilateral project initiatives with the national representative organizations of employers and trade unions from Norway, NHO and LO.

This closing event is a kind of culmination of several years of continuous cooperation between the 4 organizations within two consecutive projects that are implemented with the help of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. Expectations are for new joint activities on current topics for Bulgaria during the next programming period.

Within the framework of the SDSD project, together with representatives of branch organizations of trade unions and employers, topics were identified, after which the BIA and CITUB teams investigated a number of practices of the social partners in Norway.

What are the main social dialogue approaches that lead to successful cooperation between employers’ and workers’ organizations in Norway

• The two organizations develop common proposals for national policies for the development of certain areas, which are discussed and accepted by the government. For their part, employers’ organizations and trade unions are committed to support and concrete actions for their realization.
• Employer and trade union structures have considerable experience in planning common initiatives aimed at achieving the adopted national goals.
• The general initiatives and actions developed have a sufficiently long horizon and realistic time frames are created for the achievement of the goals.
• The two organizations are developing their capacity to determine the significant directions for the development of the country and to formulate effective and targeted initiatives, both in the field of business and for the working people and the entire population.

Using this approach, BIA and CITUB experts studied the national strategy documents of their Norwegian colleagues in the following areas:

• Achieving the objectives of the Green Deal
• The Climate Action Plan
• Circular economy
• Food stability
• Plastics strategy
• ESG

It should be noted that although Norway applies European legislation in the listed areas, in a number of cases the country’s ambitions exceed those accepted in Europe, while in some areas they are more conservative, taking into account the burden that business should bear and are accordingly agreed longer horizons.

More than 200 participants took part in the events held in Sofia and 5 other cities in the country. Regional and branch organizations and business representatives had the opportunity to learn about the importance of the topics and their contribution both to the development of social dialogue and to the acceleration of the country’s development. Of particular interest were the topics of the circular economy, plastics, food sustainability and the green deal.