Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 14th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview I. Working Group on Politico-Administrative Relations Author(s) Alexandru-Leonard Ionita National Institute of Administration Bucharest Romania Title The EU impact on reform in Romania: The case of the civil service File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract The 1989 revolutions that swept Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), although a common denominator for the CEE countries, generated different effects in terms of their ensuing development. The revolutions themselves differed in how they unfolded and showed that, even though the countries involved had all been nominally communist, there were big discrepancies between their levels of development. These differences would also be reflected in their subsequent reform processes from centrally planned to market economies as well as the democratization process. Within the grater process of the public administration reform in Romania the dichotomy between the political and administrative roles was not addressed and has still remained a source for reform delay. The policy formulation was a role was always associated with the political elites while the civil service was allocated a pure administrative role. This situation has hindered the reform process as the civil service has become only a tool in the hands of political elites which have been characterized by instability, incoherent policy making and often corruption. Due to the fact that the policy formulation process disregarded one major component of the public administration, namely the civil service, the policies formulated at the political level lacked feasibility as implementation has most of the times yielded unwanted results. The reform process needed to address the balance of power between the two components wit a stronger involvement of the latter in policy making. This has been a slow process as perception and mentalities from the communist period, characterized by, but not limited to, strong politicizing of the civil service, still lingered on. The European integration process has brought the issue unto the public sphere as conditionalities of the accession pushed for reform of the public administration. The article investigates the role played by the European Union in the public administration reform process in Romania with the focus on the balance of power between the political elites and the civil service. It analyses whether the constant interaction between the EU and the Romanian public administration, supported by the technical specificity of the negotiation process, especially the process of adoption of the acquis, has led to a greater assertion of the bureaucratic elements of the public administration vis-à-vis the political elites. Paradoxically, the European Union has displayed an impressive leverage on guiding the reform process while at the same time it has proven unable to impose reform. This apparent contradiction stems from the fact that EU policy towards the CEE countries favored reinforcement by reward rather than penalizing unwillingness to pursue reform. It also helps explain not only the differences in the pace of reforms and ultimately the level of development achieved between the accession countries but also the wide range of policies employed across central and eastern European space that led to different EU-compatible results. The particularities of the Romanian public administration combined with the characteristics of the EU approach to public administration reform in the former communist countries have lead to a sectoral reform process rather that a general one. Through its presence the European Union has been successful into changing the power patterns within public administration, with the assertion of the administrative component over the policy formulation one, yet this success has been limited as no spill over effect resulted form such a presence.
