OTHER ACTIVITIES

MINERVA Conference – Action Plans
Trend Conference „How to Grow Further “
NUE Grant Programme
Seminar on individual health insurance
Project: Social dialogue and free movement of persons
Seminar: Social Partners´ Needs
Project: Audit of labour market in the Slovak Republic from the point of view of needs of employers´ organizations and unions

MINERVA Conference – Action Plans

NUE President Ing. Anton Jura addressed his speech on behalf employers on Business Environment at the Minerva conference – Action Plans held on 10th May 2005. NUE as a co-organizer of the conference and as the most representative employers´ organization in the Slovak Republic welcomed the working-out of the Competitiveness Strategy of Slovakia until 2010 and actively joined into the preparation of Action Plans as to implement the conference priorities. NUE henceforward considers the sustainable improvement of business environment as the most important priority.
NUE President’s address hands-out:

NUE approval with the proposed task of the Action Plan – audit performance of barriers to doing business in Slovakia.
NUE welcomes the proposal suggesting that the execution of regulation of health protection at work will be managed by one body,
NUE considers the current tax and payment burden as one of crucial barriers to doing business,
NUE would prefer the substantial decreasing of tax and payment burden to its gradual decreasing,
NUE shall welcome the task execution to create the conditions for the establishment of regional Central European stock exchange jointly with the elimination of legislative barriers for capital market functioning as an important precondition of entrepreneurial entity development,
NUE has also been enforcing the minimization of state intervention into economy for a long time and surely together with the minimization of state aid volume to entrepreneurial entities by the means of reallocation mechanism of public finances,
NUE supports barrier elimination in the area of fully-functioning of electric energy and natural gas market which currently causes not little problems to entrepreneurs and the lack of competitiveness negatively influences the decreasing of energy costs of entrepreneurs. As far as this context is concerned the NUE is in favour of reassessment of the ÚRSO´s (Regulatory Office for Network Industries) task in the liberalized energy market,
NUE suggests the substantial quality improvement of legislative procedure by introducing of assessment of legal enactment impact on business environment – RIA (Regulatory Impact Assessment) into practical life. This system has been exercising in economically developed countries for a long tome and unambiguously has the positive impact on quality legislation.

Trend Conference „How to Grow Further “

The NUE President Mr. Jura took part in the conference „How to Grow Further “as the Trend guest in the premises of the Radisson SAS Carlton Hotel held on 8th November 2005. Other invited guests who participated in the conference were as follows: Mikuláš Dzurinda, Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, Andrej Kiska, founder of the group Triangel-Quatro, Patrik Tkáč, co-owner of J§T Finance Group, a.s., Ľudovít Černák, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sitno Holding, a.s., Vladimír Soták, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Železiarne Podbrezová, a.s., Cyril Matejkin, Member of the Board of Directors of Slovingegra, a.s. Christian Mandl, Chairman of the Board of Directors of SkyEurope Airlines, a.s., Miroslav Trnka, executive director of Eset, s.r.o.
The NUE President in his address besides the analysis of the current state of the entrepreneurial environment in the SR resumed the priorities which are also from the NUE point of view referred as priority issues for its improvement in the forthcoming time period:

sustainability of reforms and their results, their improving and further continuing of the reformational process;
significant decrease of payments associated with the social system reform;
improvement of the law enforcement;
infrastructure finishing -out;
the Education Reform– building up knowledge economy;

The NUE President also indicated the possibilities of the Government concerning the fulfilment of the NUE priorities:

consistent implementation of economic impact evaluation of the new legislation on the entrepreneurial environment;
support of employers when eliminating the public sources reallocation through the purposefully established funds (Recycling Fund, Environmental Fund).

NUE Grant Programme

NUE´ s interest is to create conditions for systematic and long-term cooperation with the best experts in the Slovak Republic. As the significant source of financing which is considerably little utilized for such purposes up to now seems to be exactly tax assignments. Their utilization does not create direct financial claims for employers and their companies. Utilization of these funds as the source for enforcement of qualitative entrepreneurial environment and proreform efforts therefore does not present direct expense for enterprises.
NUE may by the establishment of the Grant Program for enhancement of the entrepreneurial environment the NUE significantly and quickly extend and multiply its activities as well as the impacts of its activities without additional personal guaranties but on the other hand in cooperation with reputable institutions and experts from the whole Slovakia.
The NUE Grant Program on the support of the entrepreneurial environment will be financed from the contributions of the tax assignments and used for financing of various subjects and their activities leading to the enhancement of conditions of business. The NUE Presidium shall decide on assignment of the financial funds.
In compliance with the Act on Income Tax supported activities must be prioritly aimed at support of education (Article 50 par. 5 of the Act No. 595/2003 Coll.). However, this term includes widespread spectrum of activities, starting from the research, through training programs, information campaigns, etc.

Seminar on individual health insurance

The seminar was held on 16th June 2006 under the seminar management of the NUE Employment and Social policy Committee. The HR managers of the prominent companies – the NUE members, representatives of the MZ SR (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic) as well as representatives of the insurance companies participated in this seminar. The presented seminar topics are as follows:

Health reform from the point of view of individual health insurance – discussion with the Minister Mr. R. Zajac
Commercial insurance and health reform
Expectations of the employers´ sector concerning the health reform
Task of investors in health care enhancement.

Project: Social dialogue and free movement of persons

European Commission designated the year 2006 as the year of free movement of persons. Based on this European Commission made the public offer to project preparation focused on the support of this issue. In September 2005 ZDS - Association of Employers of Slovenia requested the NUE to participate in this project together with employers´ unions from Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.
In January 2006 the first meeting of employers´ union representatives of these countries was held in Slovenia in the course of which the particular project partners presented themselves and then further project procedure was specified.

Project objective:
- to monitor the current situation in the area of free movement of persons and social dialogue in particular countries and propose the solutions resulting into qualitative changes.

Activities:
Processing of questionnaires on the possibility to compare the situation in particular countries
Seminar in Budapest – May 2006
Seminar in Prague – September 2006
Final conference in Ljublana – October 2006

Seminar: Social Partners´ Needs

The seminar took place on 1st and 2nd February 2006 and was the follow-up of the National Seminar Topoľčianky Slovak Republic on 29th and 30th January 2004 which was held under the seminar management of European employers - UNICE and European trade unions ETUC.
Top representatives of employers and trade unions from Slovakia participated in the seminar. NUE coordinated the administration of seminar participation. The seminar dealt with solutions of the following issues:

presentation of restructuralisation examples from Slovakia
presentation of supposed agenda of European social partners and priorities of European social dialogue in future
presentation of "support tools" of employers and trade unions
How can social dialogue ease the adaptation on economic and social changes?
What should be done together with social partners on European level?
How would it be possible to make use of further EU tools?

Seminar managers shall process and communicate the seminar results to the participants in the course of May.

Project: Audit of labour market in the Slovak Republic from the point of view of needs of employers´ organizations and unions

Labour and Social Policy Committee entrusted the NUE Secretariat with the project within the Sector Operational Programme Human Resources. The project was submitted at the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak Republic on 14th October 2006. In April 2006 the Selection Committee of the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family evaluated the submitted projects and based on the results it was possible to start the project implementation during the year 2006.
Project objective:
Complex analysis of labour market status in the environment of job seekers jointly with the identification of employers´ requests towards their employees out of job seeker ranks. The audit is to lead to the efficiency improvement of active measures of labour market and to the changes of preparation content and methods of activities for labour market. The analysis of needs for further education with regard to necessary skills and abilities of job seekers according to market demands will be compiled within the project framework. The audit will be performed in chosen employment sectors associated within the NUE which represent the most important fields of Slovak economy.