Civil Dialogue and Youth – the Experience of the Economic and Social Council of Bulgaria

1. Civil Dialogue and Youth – the Experience of the Economic and Social Council of Bulgaria October 2011

2. The Role of the Economic and Social Council of Bulgaria for the Development of the Social Dialogue and New Forms of Consultations • The Economic and Social Council (ESC) is “the civil parliament” of Bulgaria. It unites a variety of Bulgarian civil society organisations of similar interests; • The Economic and Social Council is the “bridge” between citizens and the national government. Its mission is to support such “bridging” so as to facilitate the communication between the society and the national government. • The ESC organises public discussions and consultations with the legislative and executive powers and civil society organisations on strategic socio-economic issues; • The main goal of ESC's operation is to enable different representatives of organised civil society to feel free to state their views whereas unanimity on matters of common interest is encouraged.

3. Promoting the dialogue and co-operation with State Bodies ESC Parliament Organisationsof employers Public discussions Opinions Analyses President Organisations of employees Equality Pluralism Publicity Government Civil society organisations

4. Youth associations and social and economic integration of young people • Тhe ESC is working actively on the social and economic integration of the young people as their inclusion produces benefits and provides support for realization of the society wellbeing priorities such as education, social security, labour market inclusion, research, innovation and environmental protection; • Young people usually are said to be the country's future. In Bulgaria exist many youth organizations involved with variety of problems, affecting the social life of our country. The Students organized in Students Councils of the relevant universities are very active; • ESC of Bulgaria is traditionally playing a constructive role in the civil dialogue and in the consultation process on economic and social policy with executive and legislative power; • The active involvement of the civil society organizations, including youth organizations and social partners in the preparation and implementation of long-term strategies and monitoring of their implementation will ensure the necessary synergy and the social guarantee for their success; • Promotion and development of youth participation in the process of elaboration of policies and measures in all spheres of social and economic life, and facilitating their access to information technologies are the key for the success of the plans and programs which mostly will be realized by those who now belong to the youth group;

5. Education and Labour Market Inclusion • Education is a problem of interest for the ESC`s work - subject of numerous analyses in the Council’s documents and it has been discussed at many forums; • Seen as the only effective step for labour market inclusion, as well as for combating poverty and social exclusion, the education and training (and especially their scope among youth) and the prevention of early school leaving have been set with priority by the Council for discussion; • Life-long learning is crucial for acquiring qualification and skills depending on the needs of the changing labour market; • The ESC recommended taking measures which would enable young people to gain productive qualities (education, skills and health) together with initiatives for thepromotion of self-employment and the financing of assistance for independent working;

6. Encouraging the active inclusion in the labour market and increasing employment opportunities for young people and especially the disadvantaged group are powerful tools tackling poverty and social exclusion; • ESC is actively working on issues connected to the labour market inclusion. Therefore the Council has proposed in its opinions and analyses several measures and significant part of them has been included in governmental documents – programs, strategies, etc; • In its documents ESC has emphasized on the fact, that young people are mainly the age group which has the enormous potential to face the processes for restructuring the employment.

7. Integration of young people interests in the institutionalized civil dialogue • Organizing regular public debates on development and implementation of youth policy-oriented issues with representatives of youth organizations, will ensure their thoroughness and utility regarding better opportunities that they could provide; • The active work of the Bulgarian Economic and Social Council on these issues finds a practical result with the organization of numerous events as well – discussions, consultations, round tables on which youth organizations are invited to take part in the debates; • Youth participation in these debates is the way to its active and full involvement in the civil dialogue, which is actually the core activity of the ESC of Bulgaria and where its work is concentrated;

8. Future ESC activities relevant to the youth inclusion • International conference on “Demographic challenges and the labour market within the Europe 2020 Strategy” to be held on 17th October 2011; • Public hearing will be organized to discuss the ESC opinion on policies to reduce early school leaving • Regional consultative meetings with representatives of the civil society organizations, youth associations, local authorities, social partners and others; • Consultative meeting with the Education, Science, Children, Youth and Sports Standing Committee of the National Assembly

9. In Conclusion • Every new generation is better than the previous ones in different aspects. Nowadays young people have better web and computer skills; they are working easily with new technologies, operating systems, web applications, programs etc. As the future is in these e-skills and in the development of the social networks, it is from great importance young people to be included appropriate in the decision-taking and decision-making processes; • The most difficult challenges facing all the politicians are hidden in the elaboration of the long-term strategies. On the one hand they should predict precisely all factors, conditions, indicators and policies aiming to have in the future a decent retirement, on the other hand they should include in the strategies for the future the proper measures, so as the new generations to have the chance to receive the needed skills for realization; • The role of our institutions in this aspect is: • to provide a platform for debates; • to integrate the interest of youth in our work; • to encourage the common activities with youth associations; • The ESC believes, that only together with common efforts, exchanging experience and best practices, we – the representatives of various institutions, could contribute significantly to the social and economic well-being of the young people.