Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 17th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview III. Working Group on Civil Service Author(s) Iulia Cristina Popescu National School of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest Romania Title Civil service at a glance - a comparative study case between Romania and Sweden File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract The value of public administration consists in its human potential. For this reason the civil service is a very important part of the public administration. In comparative law`s view there are two definitions of what civil service means: the civil service can be defined by being related with the concept of public authority, or it can be reported to the public institutions from the executive power sphere. In this paper, I have decided to make a comparative analysis between two different systems, the Romanian and the Swedish civil service. I have chosen Sweden because it is the third largest country in Western Europe, it is across Europe, having no historical connection with Romania and it is a member of European Union since 1995. Romania is also a big country, it is situated in the south-eastern part of Europe and it is an European Union member since 2007. These two countries have almost nothing in common – so I will try to find out the differences or if not the similarities when comes to civil services. The main points that I am going to bring into attention are: • The concept of civil service; • Legal regulation of public administration and of the civil service; • Civil service management; • Employment in public administration. Romania is a parliamentary democracy based on a bicameral Parliament: the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate. All members of the legislature are directly elected from Romania's 41 counties. The head of state is the President who is elected by universal suffrage, every five years. The Head of Government is the Prime Minister who is nominated by the President. Sweden is a constitutional monarchy, in which King Carl XVI Gustaf is head of state, but royal power has long been limited to official and ceremonial functions. The nation's legislature is the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag). Parliamentary elections are held every four years. In Romania and as well in Sweden, the public administration and the civil service have a legal base. They are regulated by the constitution and by specific laws. In each country the civil service has characteristic features that influence the way of the management and of the employment in public administration system. Having these premises, my intentions with this paper are to study in a comparative view the civil service systems in Romania and in Sweden, in order to reveal the fact that there are several meanings of a civil service existing in Europe, with important different features which depend on the political and administrative structure of the states and not at least on historical facts.
