CUPRINS - Universitatea George Bacovia

Savvas C. Savvidesof some marginal enterprises may be jeopardized, while parts of the stability pactmay initially additionally burden fiscal budgets.3.2.4 The EU Social PolicyThe body of legislation comprising the social policy of the EU has three basicdimensions:• The equal opportunity and non-discrimination of employment betweensexes;• The rules and regulations governing the workers’ representation at theirplace of work, the length of working hours and the contractual rights ofworkers at the stages of hiring and termination;• The rules and regulations pertaining to health and safety at the place ofwork.With regard to the implications of these dimensions of social policy onenterprises, it seems that only the third dimension would really have costimplications, since the first two dimensions are mostly covered by existing nationallabor laws and labor codes, which in some instances may be more restrictive,which have been gained by strong labor unions.With regard to the third dimension, the acquis consists mainly of aframework directive dating back to 1989 and a series of subsidiarydirectives dealing with specific areas of health and safety by establishingminimum standards of operation for different occupations and situations atthe place of work. It has already been mentioned earlier that the associatedcosts of harmonization with the acquis are at two levels: at the institutionalor country level, and at the enterprise level. At the macro level, countriesneed to reform, expand and better equip their existing institutional set up(labor relations inspectors, health and safety inspectors, environmentalstandards inspectors, etc), all of which entail certain costs.4. IMPLICATIONS OF EU ACCESSION FOR CYPRUSIn this section, we provide an exposition of the macroeconomic andinstitutional framework of Cyprus in the context of adopting the Lisbon agenda andresponding to the global change drivers in order to transform its economy into adynamic knowledge-based one and promote sustainable economic growth in orderto stay competitive. In Section 5 that follows, we will address the challenges andresponsibilities of Cypriot enterprises and take stock of their readiness to face theglobal and EU competitive environment.The Copenhagen criteria clearly state that the candidate countries areexpected to adopt and harmonize in full their national legal, regulatory andinstitutional framework to the acquis communautaire (the European Communitydirectives, laws, regulations and policies). One of the implications of EU accessionis that national governments and regulatory institutions lose their freedom to act200