Abstract
The article addresses main OECD SIGMA recommendations regarding national European Union (EU) policy co-ordination in Ukraine and provides relevant lessons from Latvia and other EU Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) Member States in addressing similar challenges from the EU pre-accession and post-accession experience. Efficiency of a national policy co-ordination is one of the core determinants to succeed europeanization of a national core executive power and further integration with the EU. The OECD SIGMA Baseline Measurement Assessment Report on Principles of Public Administration in Ukraine published in June 2018 reveals important concerns in steering and co-ordination of some reform initiatives, overlapping competences of public bodies in co-ordinating policy planning and implementation monitoring of the Government’s performance in public sector reforms. Effective implementation of national reforms is vital also in the terms of implementation of the Ukraine–EU Association Agreement (AA) that entered into force on September 1, 2017 and Actual problems of international relations. Release 140. 2019 16 requires a high level of coordination in the Ukrainian government. Relevant national EU policy co-ordination experience of the EU CEE Member States is revisited as a possible lesson for Ukraine in implementation of essential structural reforms on the national level. Key words: europeanization, Association Agreement, principles of public administration, national policy co-ordination, policy planning
Highlights
Analysis of recent studies and publications: Many studies on European Union (EU) relations with Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries have been developed since the mid-1990s, but they have primarily focused on the EU preaccession phase and the emphasis on 'adapting' to EU requirements
Researchers have focused on the EU enlargement negotiations, the reform process, progress on EU legal approximation and implementation of EU policies in the later EU Member States, the consequences of EU enlargement, EU governance, government analysis in the candidate countries and the EU influence on public administration at the national level
Revise relevant national EU policy co-ordination experience in Latvia and other EU CEE Member States and share the main lesson for Ukraine in co-ordinating essential structural reforms on the national level in the framework of Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement (AA) that entered into force on September 1, 2017 and requires a high level of policy coordination in the Ukrainian government
Summary
The EU CEE Member States' Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Development Statistics [World Bank, 2019] show that Europeanisation has allowed states to rapidly increase GDP after EU accession and gradually get closer to the average level of the EU Member States. Levels of policy co-ordination Practice tells that it is difficult to bring together all the relevant stakeholders to work without dedicated implementation policy co-ordinator and administrative mechanism of specialized inter-ministerial coordination bodies on political, operational (senior civil service) and specialists level in the Government with regular frequency of co-ordination meetings It has especially been important for co-ordination in areas where central political guidance (direction) is required or in cases of disaccord and conflicts between Ministries (e.g. crosssectoral policies). Most interesting is the case of Slovenia which had even four levels of inter-ministerial co-ordination at different levels of Government during the EU accession negotiations process, i.e. a) coordination on the Prime Minister’s level who was responsible for resolving inter-ministerial conflicts and interposing himself among ministries in their different viewpoints and positions on specific EU issues and convening the collegiate “European meeting” of the Government; b) intra-ministerial co-ordination; c) interministerial co-ordination which involved the Inter-institutional Committee on the senior civil servants level and d) the meetings of the Working Groups represented the main inter-ministerial co-ordination of EU affairs [Metcalfe, 1994]. The Parliament had a say in adopting legal acts relevant for the EU integration and important role in this process was handled by the European Affairs Committees which were established in all the countries
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