Brussels, 15/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - The national public administrations obviously do not stem from the Community scope, but the reforms necessary everywhere in Europe "may move faster, be more effective in exchanging our experiences and in comparing our initiatives" announced the French Minister for the Civil Service, Michel Sapin last week in Strasbourg during the 8th meeting of European Ministers for the Civil Service and Administration. The French Minister called for a "strong drive" to be given to this process.
In their final resolution, the European Ministers for the Civil Service backed these concerns. On the one hand, they felt it "necessary to ensure, each time it is justified, the coherence of guidelines and decisions adopted on sensitive issues". On the other hand, the resolution underlines "the need to regularly hold, in a form to be defined by each Presidency, Ministerial meetings that will enable to discuss the progress achieved and to tackle possible difficulties". Present at this informal meeting, the European Commission Vice-President responsible for Administrative Reform, Neil Kinnock, announced that "European countries are far from perfection when it come to public services (..) but we are working on it".
The Ministers did not adopt specific criteria to asses or coordinate their policies, but they took a step, down the path of comparison and discussion, by adopting resolution on: i) social dialogue (determination, with the European Commission, of criteria for the representation of trade unions; study of common discussion subjects), ii) e-government (identification and determining of performance indicators: existence of public Internet access points, hit on administration sites, move that may be effective through these sites…), iii) the quality and comparison of performances; iv) regulatory quality. The Ministers entrusted their Directors General with ensuring the implementation of these resolutions.