We have got reports from Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Malta.

All countries seem to have in common quite a high GDP increase rate compared to most of the western EU countries, they of course have been and still are suffering from the economic and social consequences of the pandemic emergency but again they seem to be recovering quite well.

The grey zones and the dark zones of such a comfortable picture are again the industrial relations where the right to collective bargaining is too often denied, especially at the level of national/sectoral collective agreements.

But again among the various countries we can distinguish relevant differences from this point of view, when for instance we understand that in Slovakia the national collective bargaining in finace industry has been denied since 2016 in spite of all the trade-union campaigns including the Uni Finance ones, while in Romania they have obtained this negotiation level and have been able to sign their own national collective agreement fo finance industry employees. EWCs will have to work as effective tools able to help overtaking these serious shortcomings, but one big issue from this point of view remains the Intesa SanPaolo Group which controls a lot of banks all over that region and whose central management still refuses to open the negotiation to set up a EWC.

We, as concerned unions for this groups, have already built our Trade-Union Alliance, under Uni Finance umbrella, involving all of us representing Intesa SanPaolo group employees all over Europe. Now the time has come to decide whether or not it would be worthwhile to impose the EWC through the Subsidiary Requirements of the 2009/38 Directive.

Another two points deserve to be stressed concerning this goal IV dedicated to these EU Countries:

one point is:

EWC national laws: trade-union role is strongly recognised in Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, also in Germany and Scandinavian countries even if through the dual channel of employees’ representatives.

another point mainly concerning new Member States and accession countries is:

Representativeness national laws conflicting with information/consultation rights when they prevent a union with less than 50% unionised employees to be recognised: An infringement procedure was opened years ago for UK in this respect. Similar procedures should be opened towards quite a number of other EU countries in similar conditions.

In conclusion:

Our action has been a further contribution to increase and deepen the inclusive cooperation and solidarity with the finance unions of the entire region where the new member states and the accession countries are. This action indeed has to be framed in a policy that we started in 2004 towards the unions from these countries, i.e. at the time of the first phase of the Enlargement of the EU. These unions are aware that a number of major problems and issues need of course a much more powerful process too be faced and possibly solved, but they do enjoy a very reliable and solid support by a union like Fisac-Cgil about their day-by-day engagement to represent and organise the concerned employees in their country and implement collective bargaining on behalf of them, within their national contexts which are definitely much more challenging than ours in terms of union rights and facilities.

Mario Ongaro