From: "Lela Garsevanishvili" <[email-masked]>
To: Mariana Mkurnali
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2018 14:45:24 +0000

Employment, Social Policy, Equal Rights and Public Health

・
We welcome the
operational Conclusions of the
2nd EU-Georgia AA Subcommittee meeting covering
Employment, Social Policy, Equal Rights and Public Health, held in Brussels on 28 March 2017.

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The GoG is taking decisive steps to develop
Social Policy:

ü
Availability  of
social  services for people with disabilities, children lacking parental care  and  elderly
is  growing every year -  in particular,  state funding,  number  of beneficiaries enrolled in programmes and service providers has doubled since 2010.

ü
Geographic coverage of the services in the country still remains a challenge, but GOG’s policy is focused on
continuity and strengthening of existing trends. High attention is paid to
service quality control, which is being standardized   and monitored.  At the same time further steps are being taken to
improve legal framework and harmonize it with international standards, especially concerning rights of children, persons with disabilities and elderly and their protection against all forms of violence.

ü
The major state programme targeting Georgian population in
extreme poverty is among the biggest cash transfers from budget that cover up to 12 % of the population.

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On
Pension Reform, GoG intends to introduce a multi-pillar pension system.
Main aim of the pension reform is to ensure adequate income level at the retirement and fiscal sustainability of pension system, thus reducing dependency on budget spending.

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The Draft Law on Pension has been elaborated and is the subject to discussion of several stakeholders. The draft law will be submitted to Parliament during
the 3rd quarter of 2017.

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Universal Health Coverage
is identified as a main priority of the GoG as reflected in an increase of public expenditure on health and comprehensive reforms to strengthen the health care sector.
Universal Healthcare Program covers the basic package of planned and emergency in- and out-patient clinical care, including oncology and maternity services. From May 2017,
new stage of UHC program has been started, which implies stratification of services by revenue groups.

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On
Public Health, in order to strengthen disease surveillance and control of Communicable diseases in the Country,
the case definitions and list of notifiable diseases have updated and approved According to the EU requirements. Accordingly, all municipal public health centers epidemiologists were trained.

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Safe Blood Strategy has been developed and endorsed as part of the
Strategic Plan for the Elimination of Hepatitis C in Georgia (2016-2020), which includes a broad range of reforms in the field of Blood Safety and envisages approximation of national blood legislation with EU acquis on blood safety till the end of 2018.

Tobacco Control

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Georgia is a party to the
WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control since 2006 and, thus, is committed to implement comprehensive tobacco control measures.

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The
taxes on tobacco products are regularly being increased since 2013 and tobacco tax ad- valorem component (5%) has been introduced in 2015 (10% as of 2016).

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The National Center for Disease Control and Public Health is implementing the
State Program on Health Promotion, the largest component of which is tobacco control, including media campaigns, training of quitline staff and Public Healthcare providers, monitoring of enforcement of smoke-free legislation in public premises,
developing tobacco cessation mobile application and school educational materials.

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On
Labour and Employment, steps are being taken to improve the functioning of the
Tripartite Social Dialogue (TSP):

ü
To revitalize the tripartite social commission,
the Government's Decree
“Approving a Statute of Tripartite Social Partnership Commission has been amended;

ü
Strategic plan for 2016-2017 for TSP has been approved;

ü
The
last meeting of the Tripartite Social Partnership Commission was held on February 10, 2017, at which the
candidates of labour mediators have been approved; decision has been made to ratify specific articles/paragraphs of European Social Charter and the ILO Convention №144.

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Based on the AA commitments, to amend the Labour Code
(in compliance with ILS) working group under the TSPC was set up and elaborated
amendments to the Labour Code in compliance with Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation and the
Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin.

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On
Labour Inspection, concrete steps have been taken to develop the
legislative framework in Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) sphere. Besides inspecting occupational health and safety, the labour inspection department is authorized to inspect the
labour conditions with the aim to identify possible cases of forced labour/labour exploitation and respond to the violations. It means that the labour inspectors have the ability and power to ensure the proactive supervision mandatorily and not voluntarily.
In order to prove the mentioned functions the Resolution of Government of Georgia
“On Approval of Rule of State Supervision/Labour Inspection of Prevention of and Responding on Forced Labour and Labour Exploitation”
was elaborated and approved in 2016.

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As to the legislative work, draft law on “Occupational Safety” has been prepared and submitted to the Parliament of Georgia.

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The Government of Georgia is implementing an active labor market policy, particularly, through:

ü
Training-Retraining State Program - In order to increase competitiveness of job seekers
and promote their employment through vocational training in demanded professions and internships a State Program on Training-Retraining and Qualification Raising for Job-seekers was adopted by the resolution of the Government of Georgia.

ü
State Program on Employment Support Services
- aim of the program is to develop/implement active labour market policy and employment support services; Increase employment opportunities for People with disabilities, provide wage
subsidies for people with disabilities.

Lela Garsevanishvili

Deputy Director for European Integration

Directorate General for European Integration

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Tel: (+995) 32 2 94 50 00- ext. 13-02