The two and a half years long project will be implemented in an international consortium, led by the Budapest Business School. IR (Integrated Reporting) is of common use in the world of large (>500 employees) national or multinational companies (See: EU Directive 2014/95, Annex 6).
The Directive does not impose the same requirement on SMEs to avoid overburdening them.
The original idea of the INTEREST project is to try to derive from this experience the more adaptable elements possible to SMEs and transform them to guidance and training materials for SMEs on IR practical issues. Instillation of integrated thinking in the entrepreneurial mind-sets is a high priority of the INTEREST project. More information at the project's website: https://www.interest-project.eu/

Business Hungary takes part in the organization of several international projects. On the following link you can read more details about these projects.

We are glad to inform you that our project proposal "IOSHA - Improving the OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) awareness of employers and employees in CEE" get approval from the European Commission. Detailed information about the project aims, work programme, partners etc.you can read here.

Due to demographic ageing, a common and undisputabie European feature, older workers will constitute an ever-increasing proportion of our labour force in the future. The econimic growth rate in the EU is set to decline with the ageing of the population, due to the reduction in the number of working-age citizens. Increasing the employment rate of people workers between 55 and 60 years of age and dealyng their exit from the labour market are thus vital components of the Lisbon Strategy.

InnoSME intends to address SMEs operating in ICT sectors that are open to improve their innovation capacities through CIP and FP7 EU framework programs and to establish a network between them to facilitate their initiatives. The project does not reach beneficiaries directly but via organizations (business federations, chambers, development agencies, etc.). MGYOSZ and INNOVA North Great Plain Innovation Agency are involved in the activities as partners from Hungary.
What can our member companies and professional associations gain from the participation?
Free consultancy, information, partner search, services, access to web-based tool, an interactive platform. Developing innovation capacity is guaranteed by a self diagnosis system. Interest in the project can be sent to aruszanov@mgyosz.be by filling in the attached Participation Form or directly at http://www.innosme.eu/page.asp?n=registerstep1&lan=7.

Implementation Roadmap:

15 May 2007: Partners’ meeting in Budapest
14 June 2007: Partners’ meeting in Brussels
18 September 2007: National Workshop in Debrecen
20 September 2007: National Workshop in Budapest



20 September 2007

Two workshops are scheduled for this year in Hungary. The first one in Debrecen on 18 September organized by INNOVA and the second at MGYOSZ Head Office in Budapest on 20 September. MGYOSZ cooperating partners: Joint Venture Association, the Hungarian Association for Innovation (MISZ) and the Hungarian Association of IT Companies (IVSZ).
Aim of the event is twofold. Once to familiarize company representatives with FP7 and CIP framework programs and give an overview on the national/regional SME development initiatives. To enhance entrepreneurial mind, best practices will be presented by Hungarian companies who successfully participated in FP6 projects. Secondly, advising those companies that are more advanced in submitting proposals to EU program calls or need consultancy for innovative capacity development.

Implementation Roadmap:
18 January 2006: Kick off meeting in Ljubljana
18 May 2006: Partners’ meeting in Budapest
22 September 2006: Partners’ meeting in Prague
15 November 2006: Final Conference in Ljubljana
Inbetween national seminars were held in the partner countries and researches were conducted with the contribution of social and company experts.

Results:
As a result of our research, we elaborated a brochure published in the languages of all the participating countries. The main results presented are the following:
o Labour migration within the new member states, and from the new states to the old, has been lower than expected. The number of foreigners living and working in Central Europe is low compared to western countries of the EU.
o The immigration and emigration of workforce has not created disturbances on the labour markets; however, youth and brain drain is a fact. We have observed that workers from the new member states who leave for better-paid employment to the old EU member states are replaced by either workers from other new member states or from outside the EU. These workers often have lower qualifications than those leaving the country.
o The emigration of skilled workforce has not increased wages in certain sectors or professions and the immigration of cheaper workforce has not lowered wage levels.
o Immigrant workers have the same rights and enjoy almost the same social protection as domestic workers.
As a conclusion we believe that it is necessary to open our labour markets even further to workers from third countries. We call for national migration policies that suit the needs of our respective labour markets and the development of our societies. Business and employers associations are prepared to play a more active role in migration and integration policy of foreign workforce, as both topics will definitely increase in importance in the future. We strongly recommend the abolishment of all transitional restrictions on free movement of workforce currently in place and call for full free movement for Romania and Bulgaria starting with their entry into the EU in 2007.

Implementation:
The seminar was attended by the European Social Partner organizations and their national counterparts. An independent expert was engaged to prepare a dossier that served as a basis for discussion at the Hungarian seminar. This dossier comprised interviews with the representatives of the relevant partner federations as well as the analysis of the existing international data and documents.
Results:
The summary points out that restructuring followed roughly the same scheme in CEEC in the 90s but pro-active reaction and anticipating challenges were not considered a priority that time. Participants were seeking the answer how social partners can provide support to the victims of restructuring besides financial allowances. Other means could be LLL, facilitating mobility between regions and countries, fighting against grey economy, spreading part-time employment, developing and supporting SMEs so that they can create new jobs. The final report will be discussed by the EU Social Dialogue Committee and the European Social Partners will design their work program in a way that enables social partners in CEEC to live up to the challenges of the new economic and social changes. The importance of the dissemination conference in Brussels is reflected in the high level of representatives attending the event: amongst others Commissioner Spidla and the Secretary Generals of the European Social Partner organizations addressed the audience.

It was concluded that the same areas for improvement applied equally to the trade unions and employers. They defined an action plane comprising six points for the future: actions listed below were considered to be both focused and achievable.

1. Create a bipartite forum for discussion. This could be either formal or informal;
2. Work harder to improve internal and inter-organisational coordination;
3. Continue to focus on the development of language skills;
4. Create a database of available experts;
5. Improve information exchange and information flows;
6. Study, and learn lessons from, the implementation of framework agreements.