Recommendations by civil society on improving the Estonian NCP’s communications, procedures, and structure
Among other recommendations, the submission notes the following issues:
- Promotional events: The NCP’s recent promotional events have targeted government officials, but not external stakeholders (including NGOs, trade unions, and businesses). To optimise its communication, OECD Watch strongly encourages the NCP to: 1) expand its promotional efforts to all stakeholder groups, 2) involve external stakeholders in these activities, 3) hold at least one promotional activity per year, but preferably to increase the number of these activities, particularly to promote the recent updates to the Guidelines, and 4) include promotional plans on its website to enhance the NCP’s visibility, which is also an indicator of strong NCP communication.
- Specific instance handling procedures: The NCP stipulates that it only accepts cases that occurred less than three years ago. This has no basis in the Guidelines, is highly limiting, and poses an obstacle to potential complainants, who may (and often do) pursue other dispute resolution mechanisms before filing a specific instance. The NCP should delete this criterion from its specific instance handling procedure.
