2025-10-15
| Brussels

Round Table in Brussels: Challenges for Public Services in Central and Eastern Europe

CEECAW Project

Excellent cooperation, exchange of experiences, and joint collection of valuable knowledge aimed at contributing to the improvement of working conditions and collective bargaining in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in Serbia as a candidate country for EU membership.

The round table within the project “Challenges for Organising and Collective Bargaining in Care, Administration and Waste collection sectors in Central Eastern European Countries (CEEC)” (CEECAW) was held on October 15, 2025, in Brussels.

The final CEECAW event brought together researchers, trade union representatives, and policymakers to discuss key challenges faced by public services in Central and Eastern Europe.

Participants from Serbia included Dajana Ostojić, Project Coordinator of the Center for Democracy Foundation, Milena Mićović Trajković, FCD Manager, and Aleksandra Mirković, Coordinator for Regionalization and Network Development at UGS Nezavisnost.

The conference featured three thematic panels focusing on:

Structural and organizational challenges in public services in Central and Eastern European countries;
Collective bargaining and the role of social partners in improving working conditions;
Transforming research results into concrete policy actions and recommendations.

Among the speakers were representatives of the Institute of Public Affairs (Poland), the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), and trade union organizations from Serbia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Slovakia.

The CEECAW project is implemented with the support of the European Union. The project coordinator is the Polish Institute of Public Affairs, while the Center for Democracy Foundation participates as the only partner from Serbia – a candidate country for EU membership.