Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 27th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG3: Public Administration Reform in CEE and CA Author(s) Liviu Radu Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca Romania Title Historical and Future Perspective on Public Administration Reforms in Countries from Central and Eastern Europe File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Liviu Radu Abstract Historical and future perspective on public administration reforms in countries from Central and Eastern Europe The wave of 1989 Revolutions seemed to open the door to a unified Europe. The practical process for achieving this goal was the extension of the European Union, an organization that proved to be so successful until that historical moment in bringing the European citizens into a common home. But the extension of EU after 1989 proved to be a far more complicated process that it was envisaged. Fifteen year passed until the first ten countries were accepted as EU member states. As for Romania and Bulgaria, integrated three years after, many voices in various European institution are claiming that their accession was premature. The differences between the standard of living and the general performances of the two countries as compared with the ones from the old European Union member states and the ten states integrated in 2004 seems to be the same if not increasing. On the other hand, also among the member states accepted in 2004 there are significant differences in terms of development and standard of living. Ten out of twelve of the mentioned countries are former members of the communist block and had to undertake major economic, political and administrative reforms to adapt their countries to the values and standards of the European Union. The reforms of public administration should had the aim to provide to their citizens positive rights close to those that Western European citizens are benefiting. The differences between the former communist countries and other EU member states and between the former communist countries themselves may be explained by the pace and the success of public administration reforms. The future of the European project may depend on the answers related to the causes that lead to success of the reforms in some of the countries and the failure in others. The issue is important from the point of view of the further development of the European project. The candidate countries for further accession are having similar problems with the performances of their administrative systems and are undertaking or will have to undertake major administrative reforms. That is to say, the lessons learned past fifth teen years in the field of administrative reforms can be valuable for future development in the field. The study will address a sample of countries that will be decided in the near future
