The role of the state in Central and Eastern European industrial relations: the case of minimum wages

Governments in Central and Eastern Europe are dominant players in the field of industrial relations, acting in a ‘liberalisation dilemma’ between the needs of further state regulation to compensate the shortcomings of autonomous self‐regulation by social actors and the demands of liberalised markets in the enlarged EU. Compared with the different types of industrial relation systems in Western Europe, a transitional model with specific etatist features has emerged. This becomes particularly evident when analysing the decision‐making process in Tripartite Councils and its function in determining national minimum wages. The article underlines the recent trends of differentiation and convergence of such pay principles as well as urgent tasks of the state to regulate the unsolved problems of poverty, labour markets and labour standards.