- Working together for sustainable labour markets -
15-16 November 2011 in Hamburg
Under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Germany
BSLN is a flagship project within the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region
Conference Report
The highly succesful final conference with around 240 participants was held in Hamburg on 15 to 16 November and adequately concluded the BSLN project. It was opened by Dr. Werner Hoyer, State Minister of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Germany in a video message.
The participants agreed on a conference resolution and 13 central recommendations for developing strong labour markets in the Baltic Sea Region. The base for the successful development of the project is the common understanding that social dialogue and tripartite structures are crucial elements of sustainable economic growth and social development. The social partners have a shared interest in well-functioning and fair labour markets as a backbone of a strong and competitive region.
The most important achievement of the conference was the creation of the permanent tripartite Forum of Social Dialogue in the Baltic Sea Region, the Baltic Sea Labour Forum (BSLF), thus ensuring the sustainability of the project by widening its participation. The forum will commence its work in January 2012 during the German Presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS).
The conference was hosted by the German social partners Dr. Thomas Klischan, General Manager of Nordmetall and Uwe Polkaehn, President of DGB North, Germany.
Detlef Scheele, Senator of the Ministry of Labour, Social and Family Affairs and Integration of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg underlined in his welcome speech the importance of the recommen-dations developed by the BSLN social partners for workers and employers but also for policy makers.
Bernadette Ségol, Secretary General of the European Trade Union Confederation ETUC, Renate Hornung-Drauß, Managing Director for European and International Affairs of the Confederation of German Employers (BDA) and Franz Thönnes, MP, German Parliament, former Parliamentary State Secretary and Member of the Standing Committee of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC) all pointed out the importance of social dialogue regarding sustainable labour markets and economic growth in their speeches.
Anders Lindholm from the European Commission DG Regional Policy presented the state of play of The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. The strategy is currently evaluated and future priorities will target to make the Strategy more focused and more concrete as well as maximise efforts to align funding with the Strategy’s objectives.
The BSLN has contributed to various projects, studies and meetings in all countries around the Baltic Sea, and the results of these were presented and discussed in workshops. In January 2012 the final publication of the project will be released, where all the results of the pilot projects and the studies are assembled.
We thank all participants for their valuable contributions and hope the conference fulfilled their expactations. We are also looking forward to further cooperative and constuctive work for sustainable labour markets in the Baltic Sea Region promoted and facilitated by the new Baltic Sea Labour Forum (BSLF).
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