by Jinwon Mun, James Nguyen and Gergana Dinkova

In each edition of the Social Policy and Politics course, students prepare social campaigns on causes that they find socially important. It was not different in Spring: we had two teams that addressed pertinent social causes. Below we post the description and the presentation of the campaign prepared by Jinwon, James and Gergana, which seeks to promote foster parenting in Bulgaria.  

Need of action

Bulgaria has a significant number of orphans. According to Bulgarian National Statistics Institute (Kandilarov, 2019), children living in poverty are 26.6% and the state has the highest rate in Europe of children separated from their parents because of poverty, physical or mental disability and lack of support.

There are two different types of care for orphans: Orphanage and foster family care. According to the 2007 documentary, “Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children”, there are many orphans with physical or mental issues. The disabled orphans are staying in outdated orphanages, which lack any types of renovations.

The case in Bulgaria

The development of orphanage is a hardly achievable task, having in mind the number of children and lack of teachers and nurses. Still, foster family care is a better alternative for orphans in Bulgaria. Sadly, this practice is not common, and many families prefer not to give it a chance.

Western example – Germany

Germany, for example, has a well-developed foster care system. When children are left behind, they can meet new foster family and have a chance for a better life. To become foster parents, people need to attend “Fostering School”. They will receive funds from the government; however, they need to have a stable annual income and suitable environment for raising a child. There is no requirement for a legal marriage, but there is one for German language proficiency, one for recognition of the cultural and historical background of the state and the child’s (PflegeKinderBerlin.de, 2022). In Germany, a foster child can live with a foster family permanently, until 18 years old, or for a certain amount of time. Also, whenever a child’s family has a serious issue, the child can stay with foster parents until its biological family resolves their issues.

Bulgaria’s lack of initiative

Bulgarians have no interest in being foster parents. 63% of the Bulgarians would not become foster parents under any circumstances (NFCA, 2021). Because of that, we want to do a campaign for Bulgarians to rethink about being foster parents. This is a noble act of giving a child the opportunity to live a stable life in a healthy environment. It is not a popular opinion among Bulgarian citizens and this campaign’s aim is to spread awareness for this initiative.

Measures/actions

We will promote the campaign through social media. These platforms enjoy a huge number of users who can spread the word of this mission and make a positive change not only for orphan children, but for childless families as well.

The campaign is available for feedback from Bulgarian citizens. Through social media platforms they can gain information and ask questions about the initiative, express their opinion and get help in potential fostering decisions.

Distribution channel

We will upload the poster which include the image of family and phrase, which can increase the media. The foster includes the information of how many children are separated from their parents, and it has “GET INVOLVED!” to encourage being foster family care. Since we will use image, the good social media distribution channel will be Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Because of that, we will use these platforms.

Target audience

The primary targeted audience is Bulgarian families with stable annual income, warm homes and willingness to be good parents to a little child in need. Orphanages are not a better option, having in mind their poor conditions and lack of proper care for the kids. Each family with the desire of expansion will be provided with the needed information and requirements and will have be quickly assigned a social worker that can help the speedy permission of fostering or adoption (European Social Fund, 2015).

The secondary target of this campaign will be the Bulgarian government. The Bulgarian Ministry of Labor and Social Policy (2022) has a goal of deinstitutionalization of child care in 15 years but it was not successful since many Bulgarians do not want to be foster parents. The campaign may not evoke the public mobilization but it might get people’s reflect on and comment about that policy. The secondary audience, Bulgarian government may get a chance to see the current situation, people’s willingness to take care about children and the reason why they do or do not want to do that.

Outcome

The success of this campaign will have a great outcome for Bulgarian orphans. The number of abandoned kids will reduce significantly, and Bulgarian families will come to understand that giving a child a chance for better life is not a bad or scary idea, as the majority of people think. The decrease in the number of orphans will potentially lead to decrease in poverty and unemployment among young people and will contribute to a more stable future generation. Also, the government might be able to check people’s reaction toward the foster family care system through the campaign. When they see that, they can find the reason and reform the policy related to the foster family care which can encourage Bulgarian people to be foster parents.

by Maria Terzieva, Erica Desjardins, Sviatoslav Hryhorenko

In each edition of the Social Policy and Politics course, students prepare social campaigns on causes that they find socially important. It was not different in Spring: we had two teams that addressed pertinent social causes. Below we post the description and the presentation of the campaign prepared by Maria, Erica and Sviatoslav, which advocates broad access to high-quality sexual education in all EU Member States. 

Proper and thorough teachings about the cognitive, social, and physical aspects of sexuality to the young adult generations contribute positive impacts on one’s reproductive health. The lack of high-quality sex education poses many risks. More specifically, experts argue insufficient reproductive education can result in high rates of involuntary teenage pregnancy and high rates of people suffering from HIV/AIDS/STIs.

The EU declares that each Member State holds the responsibility of providing sexual and reproductive education to young people. Although nearly every Member State declares sexuality education as mandatory, the quality and content greatly vary throughout the EU which results in major inconsistencies regarding this topic. Sexuality education is not mandatory in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. Additionally, it has been observed that Nordic and Benelux countries are known for more comprehensive sexual education, whereas Eastern and Southern Europe have insufficient or nonexistent sex education.

The present issue to improve is the lack or insufficient extent of concrete, high quality, and consistent sexual and reproductive health education among young people. Sexual education can include a wide range of topics, as well as provide better understandings of one’s health, combat gender biases, combat health risks, reduce involuntary pregnancies, deter sexual abuse, and much more.

We suggest the three following policies on how to provide better sexuality education. Firstly, sex education should become a standalone class provided by the different education systems of the EU member states. This way teacher training on how to approach the sensitive subject and curriculum adjustments by the national ministries will be expected. Making the campaign official on a national level would also give the right to different monitoring organs to require information about the quality and contents of the classes. Secondly, school and public libraries should be urged to provide up-to-date books on sex education so everyone can have access to them. Thirdly, peer educator programs would also be prudent to cover even more young adults who distrust authorities.

This campaign would target kids aged 10 to 17 in both rural and urban areas. This will also include kids who are homeschooled. The second target audience of the suggested initiative is teachers, school staff, and local opinion leaders: people who could potentially answer the questions on the topic and are trusted by both kids and their parents. The third one is parents. The main distribution channels for the campaign would be social media pages as well as on-site school and library posters. With the idea of normalizing the topic and its discussion, opinion leaders would also contribute with their exposure to the publicity of our campaign. The “Sex education is our right” campaign will constitute an additional source of information for kids to rely on. It will also enable a two-way communication channel between kids and educators with an opportunity of remaining anonymous (an important factor for many children throughout a sensitive-topic education). The social media page will have posts about human anatomy, sex education, contraception, etc. The information will be provided in a simple easy-to-read manner. There will be video materials for a better learning experience. Our campaign will focus on educating children on the topic to assure safe sexual experiences, lower the level of unexpected pregnancies, and lower the number of sexual assaults. Rather than convincing pupils that abstinence is the way of protecting and avoiding the dangers of STIs and pregnancy, they will be taught sex education and healthy practices of intimate interaction.

In recent years, young adults around Europe have been demanding that they have access to quality sex education in order to have a better understanding and freedom with their bodies. We as part of that community as well as representatives of the non-governmental sector would like to second that notion and thus, urge the acceptance of our campaign. We understand there could be many challenges such as the unification of agendas on the topic, public opinion, and abuse of the program to further harmful stereotypes, but we are motivated and hopeful. Sex education is a right and should be regarded as such by the whole of Europe.

Our 2022 European Semester focused on whether Bulgaria is ready to meet its EU-level commitments and move away from coal in a socially sustainable manner. Debate participants – industry stakeholders, NGO representatives and regional actors – assessed the country’s current ‘coal exit’ plans and prospects for green and just transition from the point of view of their organizations.

The event started off with the presentation by Bela Galgoczi, Senior Researcher at the European Trade Union Institute, who provided an EU-wide overview of the ongoing coal exit process. According to Dr. Galgoczi, moving away from coal can in a relatively ‘low hanging fruit’ given that only 185,000 jobs, or 0.15% of the total employment in the EU, are linked to coal extraction and coal-based electricity generation. This is a very limited number in comparison with other economic sectors awaiting ‘green’ revolutions, such as the automotive sector. At the same time, he acknowledged that coal-linked economic activity and jobs are concentrated in ten European regions, which calls for a carefully designed, targeted policy approach. Dr. Galgoczi provided several examples of ‘coal-exit’ practices from across the EU. Portugal, for instance, became coal-free eight years before the planned deadline thanks to large-scale investments in renewable energy sources made by the country’s largest power plant. Germany, on the other hand, established the so-called Coal Commission in the late 2010s that brought together various stakeholders with the aim of devising the country’s coal exit plan. With the budget of nearly 50 billion euro, Germany’s Commission is the largest green-transition initiative launched so far by an individual member state.

Apostol Dyankov, Senior Climate Expert at WWF Bulgaria confirmed Dr. Galgoczi’s point about the concentrated nature of coal-dependent jobs. He subsequently presented the results of WWF Bulgaria and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s study on challenges faced by Stara Zagora, Kyustendil and Pernik – the three Bulgarian regions that are most affected by the green transition. He pointed to the lack of inclusion of regional and local actors in the development and implementation of coal exit plans, at the same time acknowledging the need to raise local administrative capacities, especially at the municipal level. In regard to economic scenarios for coal exit, the WWF expert acknowledged that the mobilization of private financing and mixed-type investments would be needed to diversify economies of the coal-depended regions. In the second part of his talk, Mr. Dyankov presented the results of a survey that WWF conducted among youth in Bulgaria and Western Balkans’ coal regions. In contrast to their older counterparts, young people are hopeful in the green transition of their regions and perceive it more in terms of an opportunity than a threat. At the same time, they were unsure about the extent of EU involvement in the transition process, which suggests that in the future, more publicity should be granted to the European Green Deal and its Just Transition Fund arm.

The debate’s second panel took a form of a roundtable with stakeholders: Dr. Rumyana Grozeva from Stara Zagora’s Regional Development Agency, Mr. Apostol Dyankov from WWF Bulgaria and Ms. Liliya Chobanova representing ContourGlobal/ Maritza East, one of Bulgaria’s largest power plants. In regard to Bulgaria’s coal exit date, Mr Dyankov from WWF Bulgaria claimed that scientific elaborations recommend 2030 as the latest possible deadline to phase out coal extraction and coal-based energy generation. Ms. Chobanova from ContourGlobal Martisa 3, on the other hand, advocated a slightly later date, in view of the relatively high levels of Bulgaria’s dependence on coal and the necessity to ensure the security of energy supply.

The stakeholders also outlined possible scenarios for the green transition in Bulgaria. Ms. Chobanova argue that the coal exit should be gradual, and possibly involve the use of gas as a fossil fuel involving much lower emission levels. Mr. Dyankov, on the other hand, contended that following the Russian invasion on Ukraine it would be difficult to rely on gas as a potential energy source, and thus government and private investors’ efforts should focus exclusively on promoting investment in renewable energy sources. Dr. Grozeva from Stara Zagora’s Regional Development Agency discussed several potential ‘greening’ solutions for her region, such as the use of solar energy and hydrogen production. She also highlighted the need for training and retraining in order to ensure the availability of qualified workforce capable of bring about the transition. Stara Zagora can be considered as a positive example in this respect in view of its rich technical education offer at both university and secondary school levels.

On 8 March 2022 our Social Policy and Politics in the EU course featured a talk and discussion with Goran Lukič, co-founder of Slovenia’s Migrant Counselling Office/ Workers Counselling Office.

Slovenia is often viewed as an example of successful economic transformation and the most ‘social’ postcommunist country. Beneath the surface, however, it is a country of big contrasts, with groups such as atypical and migrant workers are largely excluded from the benefits of growth and prone to abuse and exploitation.

Migrant Counselling Office was established exactly in response to exploitation of migrant workers from former Yugoslav republics during the financial crisis of the late 2000s. Slovenian trade unions back then were incapable of offering complex and multidimensional support that this group of employees required. As a result, Goran  and like-minded activists launched an organization that provided up-to-date info on workers’ rights and Slovenia’s legal setup in the employment sphere. Parallel to large-scale information-sharing, the activists launched advocacy on behalf of the workers and intervened by contacting their unlawful employers and demanding that overdue wages were paid. Such interventions did not only enable the workers to receive their rightful pay, but they also helped them realize the extent of exploitation that they had been subject to. This realization, in turn, was very important for workers themselves to regain their dignity and feeling of worthiness.

The Office’s activities were initially financed by EU funds, but the EU project that had provided the financial means ended in 2015. The organization was faced with a dilemma: it could either cease – or at least significantly reduce – its activities, or shift towards membership-fees-based financing model. The Office has chosen the latter path, which has proven the choice. At present, it is an NGO with a 2,000-strong membership base that provides the organization with a steady material basis, employing five activists with expert knowledge in the fields of employment law and policy. Rebranded into Workers Counselling Office to highlight its inclusive nature, it is a recognizable actor in Slovenia, present in the media and participating in government consultations on labour-market legislative proposals. At the same time, it has preserved initial approach based on interpersonal contacts and attention to individual workers’ concerns.

Goran’s account was fascinating insofar as it showed that in the era of rigid financial frameworks and project orientation of NGOs’ activities, it is possible to set up and successfully run a membership-based organization. The high quality of support provided to workers and the personal attention they receive, are key to members’ loyalty, which makes the Workers Counselling Office as sustained activity.

by Mihaela Voydenova and Donald Xhoxhaj

During the Spring 2021 semester, just like last year, students taking the Social Policy and Politics in the EU course worked in groups on socially-oriented campaigns. In their presentations and campaign descriptions they were to outline the rationale for your campaign; measures / actions that the campaign will involve; its target audience as well as its projected outcomes. On the course’s website, we will present some of their ideas in the form of separate entries.

This Social campaign ‘Support the Unsupported’ aims to assist the people in need of healthcare services and assistance. We are focusing on the ones who live in the rural areas and cannot afford to visit their GP, get the medication they need and receive a proper treatment. There are 409 villages in Bulgaria, which are inhabited by less than ten people. Furthermore, there are 69 villages inhabited by 1 person like the Gabrovo and Veliko Tarnovo rural area. Even though there are social benefits for the senior citizens and the disabled people, a large number of these two target groups are unable to make use of the long term care programs or the social benefit packages that are being offered. Our goal is to provide them with assistance for their vital needs.

What our campaign has to offers is a number of actions, which will result in longer life span and decrease in the stress levels among seniors/disabled people. The five main objectives are:

• Provide healthcare services by building an emergency room which will be fully equipped and there will be a doctor on duty during the workweek.
• Provide an ambulance if it is not possible to arrange an emergency room. The ambulance is a great option too as it will also be equipped and if there is an urgent situation, the person in need of help can be quickly transported to the nearest hospital.
• Provide a mobile pharmacy, which will collect the medication orders from the villages and later deliver the purchases. If a certain village is not accessible by car due to weather conditions we can offer the same service, carried out by drones.
• Assistants that will be available for household tasks or to provide company for one to two hours.
• Raise awareness of the issue that Bulgaria is dealing with, by organizing informational campaigns, charity bazars and distribution of pamphlets in order to popularize the campaign and include the regular citizens into it.

The target audience of the “Support the Unsupported” campaign could be anyone. From high school/ university students to average working people that can volunteer as assistants or donate money for the campaign’s budget. We could also present the campaign to independent clubs like Interact, Rotary or Lions club, which all help to provide humanitarian services or donate to such initiatives.

As for how the campaign will be financed – it will be a co-financed project between the Bulgarian government and the European Union. The plan is to apply for European project, which will help to partially finance the campaign and the rest of the budget will come from the Government. It is important to mention that this initiative is planned as a permanent project, which will be developed through time.

The main project outcome will be the fact that these target groups will have their voice heard and live a happier, healthier life with less stress that can otherwise affect their current health conditions.

by Lara Kapovic, Nadezhda Dimitrova and Zdravko Zdravkov

During the Spring 2021 semester, just like last year, students taking Social Policy and Politics in the EU course worked in groups to  socially-oriented campaigns. In their presentations and campaign descriptions they were to outline the rationale for your campaign; measures / actions that the campaign will involve; its target audience as well as its projected outcomes. On the course’s website, we will present some of their ideas in the form of separate entries.

Campaign justification:

Romania places third to last in the EU scores for municipal waste recycling. A survey by the European Commission found that 7-8% of all Romanian citizens do not find recycling important, which places them fourth to last in the scores of all EU countries. The country also has the lowest land-filling costs in all of the EU, which gives municipalities an incentive for not advancing recycling initiatives. However, if the people organized and demanded infrastructure for recycling, the municipalities would be forced to at least consider recycling initiatives. Also, we can tell people that the inability of Romania to comply with EU norms might result in significant sanctions which will weigh on the economy in an already COVID-ridden world.

The Romanian population has a very clear reason to demand recycling infrastructure from their government. A study determined that 19% of all deaths in Romania are related to environmental issues in the country. This, again, places Romania at the very top of countries with the highest number of environment-related deaths in the EU. The main reasons were determined as the main contributors to this, one of them being Responsible Consumption and Production – number 12 on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Therefore, the Romanian population has a very direct incentive to want to recycle. The proactivity of the Romanian citizens’ is so bad in this aspect, that the biggest recycling plant in Romania is importing 50% of its recycled materials.

We have created this campaign in order to inform the population on the consequences of environmental negligence and urge them to push the government and themselves towards a more sustainable future. We will try to achieve this goal through a variety of different means targeting both the population and the municipalities.

Specific Actions:

For one, 64% of the Romanian population uses YouTube. So, we thought it would be a good idea if we were to create a short informative video, which we could also pay to have made into an ad, with playful animations and a concise and clear message, which we could be used to reach the younger generations. Furthermore, we plan to deploy volunteers to hand out flyers and inform people on the risks, consequences and current results of the failure to recycle.

We also thought that we can approach municipalities and negotiate with them to help organize the installation and subsequent collection of recycling bins. For example, we could offer to place recycling bins in the liveliest squares in the cities and then collect them every 1-2 days and deliver them to recycling plants until the municipalities can organize the logistics themselves. We realize that this is a miniscule contribution to the huge problem, but it is significant and symbolic enough to perhaps inspire the population or show the municipality that there is a need for action.

Target Group:

Our main target group is the younger generation, which has grown up in the age of the Internet and is therefore presumably more aware of the environmental consequences of unsustainable development. We hope to capture both middle school students and university students.

Projected Outcome:

It is difficult to predict any quantitative results from the campaign but goals include a minimum exposure of the campaign of 20 000 people, seeing as how the Youtube video and ad will have a tremendous outreach if we manage to convince Youtube to run it as an ad, which isn’t particularly difficult. The flyers will also reach a significant amount of people since they are cheap and easily distributed.

Covid 19 has taken a hard toll on employment and made it even more difficult for young Europeans to enter the labour market. Following our discussions on the EU’s Youth Guarantee scheme and its post-2020 successor, Youth Employment Support, students in the Social Policy and Politics course came up with highly innovative initiatives supporting labour market inclusion of Europe’s young citizens.

GrEEKS: young people in (digital) public administration

One of the schemes, elaborated by Donald, was a response to the Greek government’s plans to digitalize the country’s public administration by 2023. He suggested that parallel to the reform, young people aged 15-25 are trained in ICT skills in several areas, such as IT services, Business Software, Telecommunication Services, and IT Consulting.

The courses, offered at three different levels of difficulty, would prepare young Greeks to take up career in the digitalized branches of public administration. In addition, the inclusion of IT companies in the training scheme would also make it possible for young people (especially those completing the most advanced level of the training) to establish contact with potential employers from the private sector.

Under Your Nose, or how to (re-)train Croatia’s graduates  

Another interesting policy scheme, elaborated by Lara, sought to address two negative socioeconomic trends in Croatia: i) the extremely high unemployment rate among Croatia’s youth (44.8%), and ii) the related high rates of emigration that force the country to source foreign workforce. Instead of importing labour, Lara argued that fixing the country’s apparent skill mismatch would represent a more efficient solution both in short and medium term. She accordingly suggested that the country’s large pool of unemployment youth should be trained and develop skills needed in most sought-after professions in manufacturing, construction, hospitality and education.

All in all, Lara’s innovative solution to the two problems – youth unemployment and outmigration – is based on the simple idea: invest and activate the resources that are out there, right next to you – or Under Your Nose, as the title of the initiative suggests.

Boosting literacy skills of young Roma adults in Bulgaria

The policy scheme proposed by Zdravko addressed the issue of low levels of literacy among young Roma adults in Bulgaria – the problem that affects even those who have formally completed primary and /or secondary education. He suggested a dedicated two-year training program designed to provide extra training in reading and writing in Bulgarian for Roma youth aged 18-30.

As argued by Zdravko, such a dedicated scheme would greatly enhance the participants’ chances for labour market inclusions, especially that as the scheme progressed, it could also incorporate elements of professional training. He advocated regular monitoring of the initiative, and proposed to measure its success rate by means of a final test and periodic surveys among the graduates.

It is hard to tell whether the policy schemes proposed by the students could break the spell of high young unemployment rates in Europe, especially during the pandemic and in its aftermath. What they have in common, however, in the emphasis on training and practice that reflect the needs of local labour markets, and thus minimize skill mismatches that are the root cause of inactivity and migration.

Within the framework of the Social Policy and Politics course, we discussed the European Semester process and analysed the report issued for Bulgaria, the EU Member State in which our university is located. Now we could confront the contents of the report with EU’s reform suggestions issued for 2020: in late May 2020, the Council of the EU issued Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs) for individual EU Member States.

This year’s CSRs for Bulgaria in the social sphere could traced back to the earlier Commission’s report, which highlighted high rates of economic inequality in the country; significant regional disparities; low levels of digital skills; inadequate or missing links between education institutions and business environment; and ineffective public administration. At the same time, one can identify numerous references the recent COVID-19 pandemic and its socioeconomic impacts. In this regard, the Explanatory Referendum preceding the recommendation states that the outbreak of the coronavirus and the extraordinary measures undertaken to limit the spread of the disease has had a negative effect on the Bulgarian economy, which could further exacerbate the existing regional and societal imbalances.

As a consequence, this year’s reform recommendations for Bulgaria address earlier deficiencies through the prism of the current COVID-19 situation. The Council recommends that thee counutry implements all measures that deem necessary to overcome the pandemic and bring the country’s economy back on the growth track. Specifically, it should boost accessibility and resilience of its healthcare system; ensure equal access of all social groups to education and enhance the population’s digital skills. In the context of the post-pandemic recovery, the country should also offer continued support for business, especially for SMEs, and lower their administrative burden by implementing effective public administration reforms.

A new theme  developed this year’s CSRs is the issue of green transition. For Bulgaria, public and private investments in these two spheres are essential to ensure the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery, but also to achieve its long-term goal of the decarbonization of the economy, as set by the European Green Deal.

It remains to be seen whether the country will pursue reforms in the directions indicated by the Council. However, it seems that in view of the COVID-19 crisis and the increasingly evident challenge posed by the climate change, EU Member States may be required to take more decisive actions and outline an ambitious reform agendas than those implemented in the past.

by Yoanna Arabadzheva, Alexander Goudev and Plamen Markov

During the Spring 2020 semester, students taking Social Policy and Politics in the EU course worked in groups to  socially-oriented campaigns. In their presentations and campaign descriptions they were to outline the rationale for your campaign; measures / actions that the campaign will involve; its target audience as well as its projected outcomes. On the course’s website, we will present several of their ideas in the form of separate posts.

The recent CORONA-19 pandemic has deeply affected the entire world. Many businesses have had to close down, oil prices have dropped and more importantly people are unable to find work. Due to many workers not being essential and to protect themselves, they have been told to remain at home and not go outside without need. While for some this is a pleasant vacation from the huge amounts of work and others can work from home if need be, for many people, especially in Bulgaria, this is a complete nightmare. The statistic shows that the unemployment rate for March 2020 stood at 6.7%. There are 220,072 unemployed people registered at the Bulgarian public employment center, with many of them (26,286) registered after the emergency situation. The hotel and restaurants sectors are the one most affected by these changes as they typically employ low-skilled temporary labor. The people working in this sector can barely make ends meet, usually moving from one job to another or only being able to work part-time. Measures need to be introduced to help these workers recover once the situation returns to normal.

The Bulgarian authorities have put forward the 60/40 assistance scheme as a way to deal with the economic situation after the pandemic. The plan is for the state to pay 60% of the expenses on wages and social-security benefits to the employer so he can keep his employees and not have to fire them. The other 40% is paid by the employer himself. The scheme will target the sectors that will be most affected by this change, including tourism and restaurants and etc. As they usually rely on part-time workers, this will be important. In order to qualify, employers will either have to have been closed by order of the state or closed on their own and prove that they would incur losses from the business being stopped. 

On paper the scheme looks fine but in reality it is flawed. First, to cover 40% of the labor-related expenses can be too much for some of the sectors. Without revenue, they cannot contribute their share of workers’ pay and social payments. Another issue is that the process itself can be confusing or some aspects not being well implemented, such as those related to electronic signatures. As such many companies will be unable to make use of this scheme and have to lay off workers anyway.

The goal of the campaign is to give the people from the restaurant and night club sector a voice. Due to the circumstances a regular protest is impossible, so we will organize an online one. Chairs with signs with the names of all participating night clubs and restaurants will be placed in front of the Council of Ministers, separated by 2 meters from each other, as the official social distancing requirement has it. On a large screen near the chairs, the demands of the owners and managers of these companies for more financial support will be broadcast from Facebook. These would include, first and foremost, the change of the proportion of the scheme’s assistance from 60/40 to 80/20 measure as well as a tax break until the end of the year. The outcome of the campaign will be to have these demands be heard and possibly discussed with the relevant ministers. Our social partners are the associations of hoteliers and restaurants.

by Alexandra Gouleva, Evita Kuriga and Laine Ostrovska

During the Spring 2020 semester, students taking Social Policy and Politics in the EU course worked in groups to  socially-oriented campaigns. In their presentations and campaign descriptions they were to outline the rationale for your campaign; measures / actions that the campaign will involve; its target audience as well as its projected outcomes. On the course’s website, we will present several of their ideas in the form of separate posts.

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has brought about a world health and economic crisis with many people having to transition to working remotely with the exception of workers in industries EU governments have deemed “essential.” These essential workers often fulfill jobs and duties that are low-paid and underappreciated by the general society until the pandemic hit. This pandemic has served to highlight and exacerbate the issues these workers have been facing for years. 

Many who work in the food service, gig-economy, healthcare, factories and more have no choice and are forced to continue working in unsafe environments because their wages are well below the standard of living and they cannot risk unemployment. Many of them do not receive hazard pay, nor do employers increase their wages for their work or provide them with PPE. Statistics and news reports do well to exemplify the reality of the working conditions and treatment of essential workers in these particular sectors.

The goal of the campaign is to bring awareness to the reality essential workers face and fight for their essential rights, pay, and treatment. The campaign will focus on bringing awareness of the issue to the general public and also work closely with social partners in order to ensure the EU and companies will act effectively, so that there can be a change on a national and European level. Public mobilization will be achieved through an active social media presence and cooperation with news outlets to cover essential workers’ stories. Using external lobbying we will target EU institutions, companies, and social partners to motivate them to reach agreements and pass laws that will protect essential workers and their rights. 

Social partners have a very important role for the campaign success. We will work to engage with them the most due their access to the EU policy makers and ability to protect essential workers’ rights through sectoral or company bargaining as well as tripartite with the government. We will engage social partners such as ETUC, CEEP and others. Especially trade unions can do a lot. Our campaign will encourage people to join trade unions to call out employers about inadequate policies, sign petitions to call on the EU to act on specific measures, organize protests/strikes, etc. It is vital for our campaign that social partners push harder for better wages and workplace conditions. Discussions need to take place at the local, sector, administration, and firm level to promote a more effective response to the problems experienced by essential workers. 

The projected outcomes of the campaign and solutions are for the EU and social partners to agree on stricter standards for working conditions, as well as to protect workers’ physical and mental health. We aim to maximize financial benefits and protections for essential workers such as unemployment benefits and hazard pay. We hope the campaign will be a step in the right direction of securing a living wage standard across the EU and will bring a greater appreciation for essential workers.