Capacity of civil servants as a prerequisite for successful European integration

On September 30, the Aspen Institute Kyiv held an online dialog titled “Increasing capacity development of civil servants as a prerequisite for European integration”. The event was held jointly with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine and the National Agency of Ukraine for Civil Service with support of the EU4PAR project and the Office of Reforms of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the National Endowment for Democracy.

The meeting raised important questions and topics, as the status of a candidate country for joining European Union acquired by Ukraine opens new opportunities for development. In order to be able to take advantage of these opportunities, however, a lot of preparatory work must be done by the civil service and civil servants.

During the online dialog, experts from Ukraine, Poland, Croatia and Latvia discussed how the requirements to the competences of civil servants will change, what new challenges come with European integration and the experience of other countries that have already become EU members on this path.

The dialog consisted of two sessions. During the first session, experts from Ukraine shared their vision of the measures that have already been planned by the Government for preparing the civil service for the challenges of European integration.

The list of invited speakers included Olha Stefanyshyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, Oleksandr Kornienko, First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Natalia Alyushyna, Head of the National Agency of Ukraine for Civil Service, Natalia Forsyuk, Director General of the Government Office for the Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Tetiana Kovtun, Executive Director of the Office of Reforms of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

“Building a clear plan for improving the structure of staff potential and professional training of civil servants is an absolute priority that will enable the next political steps related to Ukraine’s membership in the EU. We have to form a new generation of professionals who will not only ensure effectiveness of internal processes in the area of European integration, but also be able to represent Ukraine in a proper manner at negotiations, EU institutions and form the EU policy together with experts of the EU member countries,” Olha Stefanyshyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine emphasized in her speech.

“In terms of staffing shortage, unfortunately, we will be observing it in the near future. Perhaps, it is worth discussing optimization of the government apparatus in this context. However, any optimization is a delicate balancing act between the needs of the government bodies, the needs of the state administration system and financial capabilities of the state. Furthermore, we also need to consider the demand of the society for the services,” added Oleksandr Kornienko, First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. He also stressed the importance of the law On Administrative Procedure, signed by the President, as the law is very important for the interaction of citizens with the state, and it also fully complies with European directives.

“It is important that Ukraine has its own educational platform, which is why we are promoting the establishment of the High Public Administration School,” stated Nataliya Alyushyna, Head of the National Agency of Ukraine for Civil Service. “This idea was supported and we have already submitted the documents to the Secretariat of the CMU.” She also added that public servants not only in the capital, but also in regions should have access to the best training programs, and these programs must be built on the basis of position classification and grading.

She also recalled the Memorandum of Cooperation with “EF Language Learning Solutions”, the largest educational company.

“We must make sure that the entire corps of public servants has an opportunity to learn or improve their English. Public servants will have an opportunity to attend free courses already in the near future,” added Nataliya Alyushyna.

Natalia Forsyuk, Director General of the Government Office for the Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, noted that not just certain people, but all employees in sectoral subdivisions must understand the EU law, its directives and regulations. This is necessary for the process of drafting laws or by-laws to be taking place in line with European law from the start. She also stressed the importance of knowledge of the English language at a high level, especially for those civil servants who will be involved in the negotiation process with the EU. “We are planning to be ready for starting the negotiations no later than in the middle of next year, which means there is not much time left,” emphasized Natalia Forsyuk.

Tetiana Kovtun, Executive Director of the Office of Reforms of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, stressed the value of the Public Administration Reform, which has been under way for several years and has shown its essence and content at the time of the war. “The fact that our country can negotiate with the EU during the war proves that Ukraine stands strong as a state and has functioning public institutions”, stated Kovtun. She also added that one of the key challenges the public service faces now is real practical implementation of the EU legislation with an assessment of its impact on the sectors and stakeholders, and estimates required for the reforms.

During the second session, representatives of Croatia, Poland and Latvia shared their experience in institutional capacity building.

Marek Tabor, Head of Executive Education Office at College of Europe in Natolin, spoke about the features of the future training for Ukrainian public servants under the «Natolin4Capacity Building» project. “The plan is to have 6 mandatory courses on various aspects of European integration of Ukraine: the internal market, transport, energy, etc, and 10 facultative (optional) courses, for example, protection of the interests of the EU, anti-corruption, etc. The courses were selected very elaborately based on the training needs. Also 16 online courses were developed and published on the website. At the moment, only the English version is available, with the Ukrainian version expected in a month. More than 300 public servants interested in training have already been registered, and soon we will open a new registration,” stated Marek Tabor.

Rafal Hykawy, Former Director General of the Office of the Committee for European Integration of Poland, noted that the office was very much like the Government Office of Ukraine, but decidedly much bigger in terms of staff. The Office had two main functions: coordination of the work of the line ministries in the legal approximation and collection of analytical data.

“Most people who worked for us, usually, were people without experience in public administration. At the time, we did not have practical knowledge in the sphere of European integration. We had to learn all of this in the working groups,” stated Rafal Hykawy. He added that the training started with the introduction to the EU institutions and their policies, using the funds from European and bilateral programs for that. The training took place mostly at prestigious universities, for example the National School of Administration (France). Also, the Office of the Committee for European Integration of Poland, signed several agreements with colleges in Europe, institutions that allowed participation in conferences and seminars on preferential conditions.

Tamara Obradovic Mazal, Former Deputy Chief Negotiator, Assistant Minister leading screening, NPAA and legal approximation, Croatia, emphasized that the challenges all countries have to face on their path towards the EU membership have a lot in common, which is why it is important to use the experience of the existing EU members.

The scholarship program was a very important decision of the Croatia Government at the time, according to Tamara Obradovic Mazal. It allowed for sending public servants abroad for training. Once they returned, program graduates were employed at ministries with a periodic rotation from one to another ministry. This was critical for transposition.

Esmeralda Balode-Buraka, Lecturer at the University of Latvia, former public servant, spoke about the peculiarities of selecting public servants for the master’s program in European law and why the work of lawyers is one of the important factors in terms of European integration. She stressed the importance of training, which results in a graduate being able to explain complex, as they might seem at first glance, provisions and directives of European law in simple words. This kind of understanding is key for a successful practice.

The dialog was moderated by Roman Kobets, researcher at the H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy.

The video of the event is available at the link in Ukrainian and English.

The event was held by The Aspen Institute Kyiv jointly with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine and the National Agency of Ukraine for Civil Service as a part of the Integrity and Governance Project implemented on a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy and also with support of the EU4PAR project and the Office of Reforms of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Source: LB.UA