In the context of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, a conference of EU ministers responsible for public administration, public sector transformation and the civil service was held in Strasbourg on 16 and 17 March.
Ivan Malenica, Minister of Justice and Public Administration, together with the ministers of other EU Member States, Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration, and Elis Ferreira, European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, participated in the exchange of views and good practices on improving the quality and access of citizens to public services.
During the conference, ministers exchanged views and experiences on the need for further transformation of public administration, further digitalisation as well as the development of an innovative, participatory, open and transparent public administration closer to citizens.
As citizens are crucial to shaping public administration, the ministers drew attention during the debate to the importance of promoting the development of a mechanism for informing citizens about the objectives, means and results of public policies and services, in order to strengthen democratic trust and enable citizens to follow the results of and opportunities provided by public administrations more easily.
The Member States committed themselves to investing further efforts in making administrative procedures available online, in particular in the areas of justice, health and education.
In addition, they stressed the importance of adopting a “mobile first” approach so that citizens can access public services at any time in digital form.
“The right to a quality public service is the right of every citizen. Public administration exists to respond to the needs of citizens, to provide them with quality services and to ensure that they can realise their rights as citizens in a fast and efficient manner. A progressive and above all inclusive access of citizens to public administrations, whether physically or online, facilitates the development of better quality services that are able to respond to citizens’ needs, leading to greater added value for end-users and public administrations in general. One way to contribute to better quality of public services and meet users’ expectations is by encouraging cooperation between Member States and exchanging experience between officials, which results in a positive spill-over effect and higher productivity of public administration”, said Minister Malenica.
In the National Plan of Public Administration Development 2022-2022, Croatia defined the objectives that contribute to bringing public administration closer to citizens i.e. creating a user-oriented public administration for efficient delivery of public services.
In highlighting the examples of good practice, Minister Malenica said that Croatia would achieve the key objectives of the National Plan of Public Administration Development by analysing the existing processes and optimising and eliminating inefficient processes in order to reduce administrative burden and thus make public administration closer and user-friendlier to citizens. The first step to make this possible is the adoption of a Document Management Decree which regulates the “digital first” principle in communication with citizens. This will enable digital, faster communication with public authorities at a lower cost. An additional step in bringing public administration closer to citizens is the planned establishment of a One-Stop Shop, where citizens will be able to carry out all the activities required for the exercise of their rights before state administration bodies.
“It is up to public administrations to be agile and listen to citizens’ needs. This is the only way our public administrations can respond to new challenges and strengthen citizens’ trust. I am convinced that at today’s conference we will define a united stance and encourage a stronger development of public services in all Member States", concluded Minister Malenica in his speech to the European commissioners and ministers of the EU Member States.
At the end of the conference, the French Presidency presented the Strasbourg Declaration on the Common Values and Challenges of European Public Administrations, which was then signed by all the Member States, thus committing themselves to further efforts to simplify public administration, ensure quality public services and mobilise emerging technologies to improve the efficiency of public administration. The full text of the Declaration is available at:
https://presidence-francaise.consilium.europa.eu/media/lr4fmofg/declaration-strasbourg17-03-en.pdf.
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