Under the aegis of the Italian presidency of the European Union, a working meeting of directors of Public Employment Services from the EU Member States and Accession Countries was held on 10 December in the Sicilian city of Catania. This traditional meeting was organised together with the European Commission (Directorate General for Employment and Social Affairs) by the Italian Public Employment Service. Representing the Slovenian Employment Service, the Director General, Mr. Jože Glazer, and Mr. Joco Klopčič from the international cooperation department attended the meeting.

One of the main topics of the meeting was “Development of the European Employment Strategy, new guidelines and EES implications for Public Employment Services. How Public Employment Services are involved in formulating National Action Plans for Employment”. Within this framework, presentations were made of the activities and experience of Public Employment Services (PES) from Germany, Finland and Slovenia in drawing up National Action Plans.

In his presentation, the Director General of Slovenia’s PES, Mr. Jože Glazer, underlined that this year for the first time Slovenia had drawn up a National Action Plan for Employment and that throughout the preparation of this document and its adoption the PES was involved in the debate in various sectors (the PES Administrative Board, the Economic and Social Council, parliamentary bodies and government). He also presented the structure and main highlights of the annual action plan activities, along with the plan for implementing and monitoring the fulfilment of tasks proceeding from this document. The presentation of Slovenia’s 2004 action plan was well received. Through these activities Slovenia has demonstrated that it is keeping up with and adopting the logic and methods of functioning of the existing EU Member States in this area.

The meeting went on to devote considerable attention to examining the development of PES in some of the Acceding Countries, where a major role has been played by the World Bank. There were also presentations of current PES reforms by Italy and France.

The concluding part of the meeting was focused on two areas that are very important for the future. The first of these was an open discussion on the future role of the Heads of PES network, of which there will be 25 in the future. The second involved participants adopting the proposed Heads of Employment Services Work Programme for 2004.

On 11 December 2003 the Directors General of the PES and their staff participated in a meeting of the EURES High Level Strategy Group. They also participated in the European conference on “Employment policy and preventing undeclared work - from segmentation to integration of labour markets”, which was held on 11 and 12 December 2003 in Catania under the organisation of the Italian labour and social policy ministry. In addition to the two representatives of Slovenia’s PES, the conference was also attended by Mrs. Staša Baloh Plahutnik, State Secretary for the area of the labour market, education and employment at the Slovenian Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs.