The Social Security Systems for Self-Employed People in the Applicant EU Countries of Central and Eastern Europe

In the last few decades, attention for the social protection of self-employed people in Europe has grown. The countries that are probably most concerned with the social protection for self-employed persons are the Central and Eastern European states. At the end of the twentieth century, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, they were confronted with rising entrepreneurship. Self-employed entrepreneurship was and still is one of the key elements in the transformation of their guided economy to a free market economy. The essential question for many policymakers of Central and Eastern European states is, consequently, to what extent social protection should have a place in this free economy. This publication gives an overview of the existing social security systems for self-employed people in those states in Central and Eastern Europe with which the EU has started negotiations for a possible entry. More specifically, it concerns Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. For each state it is checked for which risks the self-employed person is socially insured and how the social security systems are structured. Moreover, the author investigates the specific problems, which the states have to deal with when developing a social security protection for the self-employed. After the description of the national systems, the final chapter will offer a brief comparative analysis. The aim of this analysis is to present the key points in the description of the systems for self-employed persons in Central and Eastern Europe. This chapter will equally be used to make the link with the EU countries.