“Institution Building for EU Membership”

Training course for advisors
Albena, Bulgaria, 23-26 June 2004

written by Marta Darulova, Leading trainer

Context

The ongoing reforms in public administration in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe require constant attention and support. One of the programms aimed to help is the joined effort of NISPAcee and UNDP Regional Support Centre in Bratislava within the framework of good governance. The programme started in 2001 with a series of trainings “How to be a better policy advisor” and a manual under the same title complemented later with a manual for trainers. The participating advisors appreciated the training and suggested that the following training should be devoted to concrete topics, such as EU issues.

Hence, NISPAcee prepared a continuation of the programme focused on building capacities for EU membership supported by UNDP and MATRA. This second stage started in June 2003 with preparing a manual for advisors in this area. The first training activity was a train-the-trainers session “Building Advisory Capacities on Institution Building in preparation for EU membership” equipping the advisors and potential advisors with the necessary skills. The last day of training symbolically fell on 1 May 2004 and the group together welcomed the entry into the EU.

Three of the new trainers Marta Darulova (Slovak Republic), Olena Kulenkova-Orzhel (Ukraine) and Mariusz Mielczarek (Poland) then started designing a programme for the Albena training.

Programme

Apart from the general reform efforts in the area of public administration to make it more reliable and predictable, open and transparent, accountable and efficient as well as effective, the countries are facing another challenge, namely meeting the EU requirement of proper implementation of EU law and policies. An underlying principle is that of coordination.

The programme covered four main topics:

1.       The concept of institution building and administrative capacities, building the European administrative space, framed by the principles and core areas for Public Administration as formulated by SIGMA

2.       Tools of analysing the organisational structures with a view of improving them with the help of quality assessment tools such as EFQM, and CAF, the concept of benchmarking.

3.       European Union policy making mechanisms, and the possibilities of member states to influence these processes with the stress on the national coordination of EU affairs with a view to efficient implementation of EU law in the country afterwards.

3.       The EU law and policy implementation issues in (new) MS and the case law of European Court of Justice as a source of guidelines in the absence of rules from the side of EU.

Results
The course in terms of scope, depth, materials and methods was well above expectations of participants and will have positive impact on professional development. They would have welcomed more time for individual course elements, especially the quality assessment tools. The participants as well as the trainers appreciated a very good working atmosphere, interested and active participation, enough room for experience sharing and bringing in examples and useful case studies. This event confirmed that it makes sense to look for common solutions as our problems are still common resulting from the past development and present ambitions.

Participants

Ms. Tashchilova Svetlana, Belarus

Mrs. Bebenova Diana, Bulgaria

Mrs. Yotova Mimi, Bulgaria

Ms. Gramadska Elitza, Bulgaria

Ms. Marinova Ekaterina, Bulgaria

Mr. Shopov George, Bulgaria

Mrs. Ivanova Mariana, Bulgaria

Mr. Parun Mirko, Croatia

Ms. Eerma Diana, Estonia

Mrs. Maurina Jelena, Latvia

Ms. Rjabko Kristine, Latvia

Ms. Farcas Sanda, Romania

Mr. Pamfil Virgil, Romania

Ms. Radulescu Crina, Romania

Mr. Pavlovic Dejan, Serbia & Montenegro

Mr. Ablyatifov Rustem, Ukraine

Mr. Potapov Oleksiy, Ukraine