Suchergebnisse

The study approaches in an unitary manner, the fundamental concepts of the theoretical and practical accomplishment of an European public administration: the European Administrative Space, the convergence and the administrative dynamics and the Europeanization. In the absence of a specific acquis communautaire, the European administration includes all the experiences and evolutions with relevant impact at national level, connected to the principles of a responsible and transparent administration, founded on the grounds of efficiency and efficacy. Particularly agreed upon within the constituent treaties of the European Union, these principles might form the general standards not only for the process of acceding to the European Union, but also for the convergence towards an European model of public administration. The efforts of analysts and specialists to describe the real evolution process of national administrations are with no doubt, extremely important, even though at some point, contradictory. The model of European administration makes use of the systemic analysis and offers the conceptual framework needed for covering the diverse problematic it encompasses.

Central and Eastern Europe has known in the last 20 years profound changes. The shift from a dictatorial system to a democratic system forced the states from this area to adopt structural measures for all public institutions. In this context, the institution of "civil servant" could not remain unaffected. In the period of communist regimes, the institution of "civil servant" did not exist, the civil servant being just a simple employee of the state. Work relations were the same as for any employee. The shift to another political system, the democratic one, determined the reconsideration the role and the place of public administration, and implicit of civil servant in the framework of the state system. In this context, it has been a shift from the statute of simple employee to that of civil servant, representing the power of the state. In the process of accession to the European Union, the states from Central and Eastern Europe have been permanently pressured to clearly define a strategy concerning the competitiveness of public administration, concerning the statute and the career of civil servant. In the context of democratisation, we can notice that the principle of meritocracy has become a key principle in the civil servant's career. The term "meritocracy" is often used in order to describe a type of society in which wealth and social position are obtained mainly through competition or through ability or proved competences. A position invested with responsibilities and social prestige has to be acquired and not inherited or obtained by arbitrary criteria. Meritocracy represents also the term used to describe or to criticise a society in competition that accepts inequitable disparities of income, wealth and social position. Taking into account the above considerations, the present paper aims to achieve an analysis of meritocratic aspects in the systems of planning and promotion of civil servant's career in Central and Eastern Europe.

The goal of the paper is to evaluate the impact of reducing the administrative costs on the efficiency in the public sector. Within the general framework provided by the specialised literature, the proposed methodology uses the classical model of a function of production, thus describing the factors of influence of the administrative costs on production and productivity in the public sector. The theoretical results are empirical exemplified for a local service of public utility. Adapting the theoretical model to the empirical situation is grounded on statistic methods of analysis and regression. The interpretation of results inscribes in the economic framework specific for public economics. The results aim both the novel model of analysis and the concrete evaluation of the economic impact of reducing the administrative expenditure in the public sector. At the same time, the general topic of reducing the administrative costs is extended towards the public sector. The most relevant conclusion refers to the capacity of the classical economic models in developing the public sector.

For several European states, including Romania, the European integration process has overlapped with the effects of the economic and financial crisis. The consequences of such a situation are apparently contradictory. On one hand, the crisis lowers the European integration process in view of achieving the performance imposed by the Single Market, the economic and administrative convergence etc. On the other hand, the possibility of accessing the European structural funds becomes a welcome financial resource for diminishing or stopping the effects of the crisis. The second alternative establishes new balances or imbalances at the local community level, with effect on the employment policies.
The European structural instruments – Structural Funds, Cohesion Fund, EC initiatives – are associated with the effects induced in view to achieve the EU objectives such as: economic, social and territorial cohesion, economic growth, competitiveness, employment, sustainable development etc.
The current paper aims to emphasize in a theoretic and empiric manner, the influences of these structural instruments on the employment policies at local level. At the same time, those influences will be correlated statistically with the effects of the financial crisis, obtaining a more comprehensive image concerning the consequences of the mix of national and EC policies for the economic integration and fight against the effects of the financial crisis for some EU states. The authors propose a model of local development based on the theory of the general balance, integrating the resources provided by the structural instruments and emphasizing their compensatory effects related to the financial crisis.

The proposed model is empirically exemplified for some development regions in Romania, suggestive for general conclusions, of comparative nature, at European and international level.

This paper presents a model based on simultaneous equations with statistical determined parameters for describing the evolution of important issues relating to local development. The main issues considered are public and private business development environment, employment, demography, social comfort, etc. Parameter estimation with simultaneous equations model was done by procedures implemented in EViews using empirical data sets from city Braila, Romania, for the period 2000 to 2005. Applying the Durbin-Watson test, results were compared for the simultaneous equations model where the parameters were estimated by twostage least squares method.

In the last 10-15 years the preoccupation concerning administrative expenses were expressed in concrete initiatives. The networks concerning Standard Costs Model (SCM) are worth mentioning for reducing administrative expenses in private business area. European Commission elaborated and is currently implementing a strategy for reducing administrative costs for business inside EU.
Similar initiatives can be found at OECD, World Bank and in numerous other European states, and not only, such as USA, UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and others.
Financial crisis emphasized the preoccupation for administrative expenses reduction. The analysis and measurements focus was transferred towards public business area where most of the states proposed short term strategies to reduce the mentioned expenses. In this context, the strategies comprised all governance levels were expressed in concrete measures to reduce administrative expenses for administrative structure and local public services etc.
In many of the situations, the resulted sums from the administrative expenses reductions were redirected towards production process concluding in the maintaining of public service production and increasing its efficiency related to workforce.
In this context, the present paper aims to generate economic models that determine the influence of administrative expenses reduction on public services efficiency and, based on these, to formulate conclusions on local governance efficiency.