It´s about EUROPE - It´s about YOU
Citizens’ Dialogue
Bratislava’s old market hall was filled with engaged citizens,
not only from Slovakia, but also from other countries of the EU, eager to
discuss important EU issues on November 5, 2015.
The discussion "Together about Europe” was opened by Andrej
Kiska, President of the Slovak Republic and Dusan Chrenek, Head of the
Representation of the European Commission in the Slovak Republic.
Citizen´s Dialogue speakers, Valdis Dombrovskis,
Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Euro and Social
Dialogue and Vazil Hudak, Minister of Economy of the Slovak Republic, discussed
various permanent and actual EU issues. The discussion focused on the Eurozone,
the advantages and disadvantages of EU membership, the Euro, EU economic
priorities, such as economic growth, unemployment and EU member states’ public finances,
EU funds and corruption, the relationship between overregulation at EU level
and economic growth and employment, migrants, the future of and opportunities
for the younger generation, and responsibility to citizens and other EU member
states.
The Slovak Republic will take over the Presidency of the
Council of the European Union in the second half of 2016. This is an
opportunity for the country to participate more actively in the EU agenda,
provide learning and experience for its public administration and to increase
citizens’ knowledge concerning EU issues. Are citizens and institutions made
aware of all current activities? Do they make use of all the possibilities
offered by the EU? These questions were also discussed during the event.
Discussions and several online opinion polls which were
running during the event proved the necessity to communicate more thoroughly
all EU opportunities, policies and strategies with the public, not only
professionals, but also ordinary citizens. Citizens’ opinions appear to be
negative concerning the benefits and opportunities of the EU, especially the
effectiveness and efficiency of various EU funds for example, corruption and
fraud were mentioned as being synonymous with the utilisation of EU structural
funds. However, opinion polls confirmed
the general public view that membership of the EU provides a better foundation
for economic growth and consequently, more opportunities for employment and an
increased standard of living in member states. The present important topics, dealing with immigration, were touched
upon only marginally as these were not a primary subject of the event. However,
the dialogue confirmed that there is much room for public administration
professionals and decision makers at national, as well as EU level, to pay more
attention to all of the targeted issues discussed.
Building awareness, understanding and knowledge about the
EU, its public policies and their impact on public administration and public
policy issues are included in NISPAcee activities, mainly within two projects
supported by the EU ERASMUS+ programme: European Union Integration Process
Promoting Activities and Europeanisation of Public Administration Reforms. The
aim is to turn the attention of researchers towards EU integration processes
and their reflection in different areas investigated by various NISPAcee
research working groups, to stimulate the debate on these issues and to provide
a platform for the engagement of researchers and policy makers on EU-related
themes. For this reason, NISPAcee representatives, Ludmila Gajdosova, Executive
Director and Elena Zakova, Senior Manager, participated in this event.
NISPAcee’s 2016 Annual Conference on the theme Spreading
Standards, Building Capacities: European Administrative Space in Progress, to
be held in Croatia, in May 2016, fits very well into the above mentioned
intentions. We are witnessing a specific
process for spreading various standards throughout Europe, both in the east and
the west. These standards stand out and are the result of efforts to increase
public administration capacities to cope with the increasingly complex and
worst problems of the contemporary world. Good European governance, on the one
hand and good administration on the other, are probably the best-known
components of the common European Administrative Space. It is of special
importance for European citizens and those who come to the European territory
because they can rely on a predictable, lawful and reliable functioning of
public authorities at all government levels. For this reason, it deserves all
possible scientific and expert attention, as well as massive research efforts.