Press release

On 24-25 April 2012 the Danish Presidency organized the Informal Meeting of Ministers for Employment and Social Affairs, which meeting is traditionally held terminally. The Hungarian delegation was led by dr. Miklós Réthelyi, Minister of National Resources and dr. Sándor Czomba, Minister of State for Employment. Each of them represented their own fields of responsibilities.

The main topic of the informal meeting was the employment policy.

Commissioner László Andor presented the new Employment Package of the EU came out on 18th April, which summarizes the initiatives aiming to increase employment and create more jobs. The most important topic for the Ministry of National Resources was the draft on employment in healthcare. The Commission suggested the development of forecasting and planning of health workforce needs - together if it is necessary. It encouraged that Member States should exchange experiences on best practices in retention of doctors as well as workforce of health in order to secure the flawless healthcare service in Europe. Mr. László Andor detailed the initiatives of Member States against the unemployment of youth.

In the plenary session the ministers debated the proposal of the Commission concerning the posting of workers into another Member State.

According to the informal character of the meeting the ministers discussed the issue in three parallel workshops later on.

Dr. Miklós Réthelyi presented the Hungarian efforts in the workshop for social services. He highlighted that the reconsideration of the social services is necessary even in Hungary, due to negative demographical processes, changing needs and demands deriving from them as well as financial constraints. The Hungarian Government has already undertaken several measures to improve the efficiency of social services. He mentioned the positive experiences of the tender based, performance orientated financing in basic services. He underlined the need for a client-based approach, which places the needs of the clients in the centre, instead of the current institution-based approach. He mentioned the social network of solidarity hamlets as well as the alarm-based home assistance for elderly as positive examples.

(Ministry of National Resources)