In the aftermath of the four wars in Yugoslavia between August 1991 and May 1999 the European Union, its candidates for accession and its allies decided to change their political approach to the Balkan region. In the past, it had vacillated between bilateral favouritism and indifference. The result of this reconsideration of regional policy was the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, signed on 10 June 1999 in Cologne. This pact for reconstruction, democratisation and the protection of minority and human rights constitutes a change of geopolitical logic. The region is no longer considered as a sum of isolated "problem zones", but as part of Europe that demands an integrated and sustained treatment of its political and economic problems.

Historically every country in the Balkans had a favourite partner in Western Europe. Relations with neighbouring countries were minimal at best, but often even hostile. A look at flight schedules confirms this pattern even today: several flights daily to Vienna, Munich, Paris and London from major cities, but few direct connections between neighbouring capitals. In the same vein, Croatian trade unionists would be well informed about German labour relations; Serbian trade unionists had intensive relations with their French colleagues and Albanian trade unions would receive much help from their Italian counterparts. They knew little about the trade union experiences, newly emerging legal codes, social security systems and labour relations of their neighbours in the transformation countries of Central Eastern Europe.

Regional development and trade unions

The new approach towards integrated regional development has consequences for trade union work and for workers' education. Within the logic of the Stability Pact, it is considered more adequate and less costly for Croats or Serbian trade unionists to study the experiences in neighbouring Hungary or Slovenia, for example. Rather than sending delegations on expensive study tours to Western Europe, local transborder co-operation would be preferable. Trade unions in the countries and territories in and around former Yugoslavia can be more easily assisted through schemes of mutual support rather than through benevolent aid programmes of the conventional type. The reasons for co-operation, however, are not only those of functionality and low cost. Transborder co-operation is also intended to make people better acquainted with each other in order to overcome chauvinist nationalism and ethnic antagonisms.

Countries within the region supported by the Stability Pact strive to attain similar standards of material welfare, social protection and political development. But the inequality of starting positions has to be recognised and strategies adapted to the wildly varying circumstances.

The economic and political development in South Eastern Europe is particularly heterogeneous. Three types of economies can be distinguished:

Candidates for accession to the European Union:

Economic transformation has been largely achieved in this group of countries. Democratic reforms are firmly rooted. Exports and investment are already strongly linked to the EU. The rule of law and EU standards are by and large assured. While there are structural problems in old industrial or mining areas, unemployment is single digit nationally. Hungary and Slovenia belong to this group. Their entry into the EU is imminent in the next few years.

"Ready for take-off: transformation in progress":

In this group of countries structural change has seen partial advances. Many reforms have been introduced, but some have remained on paper. The rules and regulations governing European integration, are gradually being adopted. The judicial systems and public administration are of uneven quality. Many traditionally managed state enterprises continue to exist with painful privatisation yet to come. Acute poverty is still widespread. The group comprises Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Montenegro, which have a time horizon for entry into the EU of some ten years.

"Makondo in the mountains, the economy down in the dumps":

Serbia under Milosevic and the territories most affected by his wars (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo) as well as Albania belong to the losers of recent history. Those parts of their economies not affected by Yugoslav wars, by NATO bombings and embargoes are hindered by corruption, government incompetence and cronyism. Better skilled and educated people have left these countries. A phantom economy of factories and firms at stand-still is reflected by phantom trade unions that are engaged in remembrance of the olden days and to a large extent organise unoccupied workers. According to a recent Belgrade poll, about 20 percent of the working population in Serbia is organised in trade unions, but only 12 percent have confidence in them. In Albania some trade unions claim to have over 50 thousand members, but only just over 250 can be shown to have paid their union dues.

The medium term perspectives for the development of labour relations, trade unionism and subsequently of worker’s education are determined by two main problems in most countries of South Eastern Europe.

On the one hand, the majority of people of working age are not employed under classic long term labour contracts in durably constituted enterprises. With the exception of Hungary and Slovenia, in all other countries of the area most people are either unemployed, underemployed, employed with precarious short term contracts or self-employed in the informal sectors of subsistence agriculture and in the various shades of black, grey and second hand markets. They survive in newly revived crafts, in repair jobs and through family solidarity.

On the other hand there has been a massive de-unionisation in the past ten years. While in the old pre-1989 system membership was generally automatic on entering employment and compulsory, newly privatised firms were frequently hostile to unionism. In what remains of the formal sector of the economies, the majority of workers are either not organised or belong to independent, but isolated company unions. Trade union movements also indulge in the luxury of being divided into various confederations. In Croatia, Romania, Slovenia and Hungary between four and seven national confederations struggle more against each other than for new members. This apparent pluralism between confederations is largely due to the lack of pluralism within confederations. Dissenting tendencies and personalities were not accommodated within a unitary but tolerant trade union structure. So they left to set up their separate shop, often financed by Western European and North American seed money.

The consequences for the trade union movement and for workers' education are drastic. Workers will have to be attended to where they are truly economically active. This is not on phantom staff lists of long closed factories, but in various forms of the informal labour market. This would also mean an end to the widely spread dogma of the company union as the only conceivable organisational unit at the base of a trade union movement. Individual membership in branch unions and even confederations should also be permitted. But trade union membership in itself only makes sense to people in the dire straits of the Balkans if the services rendered are of practical value.

Workers' Education and International Study Circles

Regional integration, a change towards a service minded orientation and the pursuit of trade union unity would have the following implications for workers' education in South Eastern Europe, and potential for the application of ISC methods:

General:

The principles of "best practice" and benchmarking should also be applied to trade unions and workers' education; namely, the dissemination of good examples achieved under the specific circumstances of the region. This can be done within the framework of transborder co-operation or through ISCs. Models from Western Europe are of limited usefulness and difficult to emulate.

Regional Integration:

Trade unions should intensify their co-operation in transborder initiatives. For neighbouring regions this could best be done within the existing Euroregions. However, these trade union co-operation agreements should be more result-oriented and more strongly involve local members, shop stewards and members of works councils rather than full-time trade union officials.

On a more local level, transborder working groups can be a useful instrument to improve union work and provide education and training. The first such group was constituted on 19-20 April 2000 in Szeged between local unions from South Eastern Hungary and the Voivodina region of Ex-Yugoslavia. A similar group will start around Sofia in Bulgaria together with the towns of Pirot and Nis in Serbia.

On specific issues ISCs can also be helpful. This is particularly the case in a region where travel can be prohibitively expensive for people on low and irregular incomes. Private and public access to e-mail (for example, Internet Cafés) is available everywhere, even in war-torn Kosovo.

Useful skills for workers:

It is vital that workers' education activities provide attractive skills for strategically important segments of the labour force; namely, young workers, women and those working in technologically advanced new enterprises. When trade unions offer language training and computer skills, the courses are full with this kind of participant. Involvement in reconversion schemes for those whose employment is threatened or already terminated is equally attractive. Newly emerging professional groups should also be attracted to trade unions. A very positive example is the attention paid by the Romanian confederation Cartel Alfa to new categories of personnel in the privatised sectors of medicine. It remains to be seen whether trade unions can also make themselves useful for people in the informal sectors and the self-employed.

The quest for trade union unity: