Contemporary public administration is inherent of reforms, changes and innovations. Seeking solutions to the problems arising, most attention is paid to increasing state structures’ efficiency, stability of governance bodies and the professionalism and efficiency of civil servants’ training systems in state institutions in central and eastern European countries, inside as well as outside the European Union. The development of civil servants’ administration skills is one of the conditions for an increase in public service efficiency. The civil servants’ continuous training system, which consists of selection and recruitment of specialists, career planning, payment and promotion, introductory and continuous training, re-skilling and assessment of specialists, is closely related to the strengthening of administrative capacities and new quality creation according to the conditions of the EU. The main objectives of civil servants’ training systems are: to create a civil servants’ training system, which would be integrated and governed by central and local government and to evaluate the development of the system and related programmes.

The principal goals of the newly established working group is to research and identify new approaches towards capacity building of civil servants’ training systems according to EU requirements. The following questions should be highlighted:

• What are the present conditions of the training of civil servants?

Civil servants’ training systems should be based on the principles of systematic, continuous training and financial rationale. The systematic principle is:  the training of civil servants should be implemented systematically and should include all public institutions and municipalities. The principle of continuous training:  the training of civil servants should be oriented towards the permanent strengthening of administrative capacities of institutions. The principle of financial rationality:  the financial resources that are allocated for the training of civil servants should ensure the efficiency of such training.

• What should be the most effective civil servants' training system according to EU standards?

Institutions that are participating in the training of civil servants must guarantee that training programmes comprise a variety of social, economic and cultural changes, good quality and the accessibility of supplied services to civil servants. What should the new approaches be towards the capacity building of a civil servants’ training system according to EU requirements?

Using case study methodology, working group papers are invited which analyse the key factors of successful practices in creating civil servants’ training systems according to EU requirements together with new approaches towards improving the quality of services delivery.  Comparative research papers focusing on other countries are also welcome.