ABSTRACT
Just after the political changes of 1989, the Central and East European Countries (CEECs) undertook a vast programme of reforms as part of the transition from planned to market economics and from totalitarian government to democracy. This “great transformation” involved serious political risks, including the thorny “transition dilemma” (Bohle and Greskovitz, 2006) of pursuing reforms with high social costs while building democracy. Far from being secondary, the establishment of bodies for social dialogue, actively encouraged by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and involving new and reformed union and employer organisations, has in fact been as a valuable lever for promoting social peace and providing political legitimacy to governments. From the early years of transition, most countries opted for tripartism, setting up frameworks to structure collective bargaining at the sector and company level. The start of accession negotiations to the European Union (EU), at the end of the 1990s, and especially the adoption of the acquis communautaire provided a new instrument for promoting institutional convergence with this central component of the European social model (ESM).
