Preface
Objective and Key Issues
Theoretical Framework
The issue of the efficiency of policymaking at both international and national levels can be analyzed from different theoretical perspectives. The sum of the influences of different stakeholders produces a certain result, which can consist of submitting to the demands of the European Commission, or negotiating (sometimes rejecting) these demands. Similarly, within the structure of the European Commission, the sum of the influences of different stakeholders ensures that one or another position is recommended to a Member State.
Thus, a suitable framework for explaining policy outcomes is modern institutional economics, which asserts the importance of individual actions in the policy-making process and the imperfect rationality of decision-makers, hampered by high transaction costs. The identification of the position of the decision-maker or interested party, as well as the analysis and reasons for such a position is the main methodological objective of the paper. For the purposes of the analysis, the stakeholders will be divided into several categories: civil servants directly in charge of the policy in question, senior decision makers within ministries, politicians, interest groups, media, society, and representatives of the European Commission.
Sequence of the Paper
Social Responsibility in Governmental Action: Theoretical Foundations
Thus, the organization itself is no longer perceived as the main focus of analysis. Rather, the views and behaviors of individual actors give rise to the phenomena being studied. While individual rationality is accepted as one of the determinants of policy outcome, two tendencies can be distinguished – one taken from the traditional neoclassical view that asserts perfect individual rationality and the other taken from modern institutional economics – imperfect individual rationality, assuming incompleteness and knowledge and information of decision makers.
What do we gain or lose by applying the framework of personal interest of the decision makers and transaction costs as a factor influencing personal choice, rather than any alternative framework. These cases are also not suitable for the analysis because no valuable policy recommendations could emerge from their research – an accession country could reject any attempt to demand undesirable policy solutions by building international alliances and consolidating domestic policy agendas, but not by actions at the level of the domestic civil service. As this article argues, such influence is significant and the decisions at stake in such cases are highly negotiable. The inability to do this rests rather on the inefficiency of the domestic organization of the civil service, lack of information among decision-makers, the misunderstanding of what is good or bad for the country, and ultimately – the interplay of interests of those who understand or not understand, want or not want a policy solution.
Social Responsibility in Governmental Action: Practical Application of Theoretical
Social Responsibility in Governmental Action – the Case of Regional
- What is the EU regional policy
- The Decision
- Why a Policy Failure – a Theoretical Justification from the Regional
- The Actors and Outcomes
- The Analytical Conclusion
It also does not find support in the policies of either the EU institutions or the EU member states, nor in the tradition of planning the accessions themselves. The regional policy of the European Union, whose main instrument is the EU Structural Funds, and in the case of accession countries, pre-accession instruments, emphasizes the region as a larger territorial unit in which the policy should be implemented. It is very important that the NUTS II region is the one that is eligible for support under 'Objective I' of the EU Structural Funds - an objective that foresees assistance to regions lagging behind in development [16].
In the Czech Republic, the Law on Regional Development was adopted in 2000, which addressed not only issues of national regional development policy, but also of the management of the EU structural aid. In many accession countries, the civil servants in charge of the EU funds were demoralized, as they had to do things that defy logic. Civil servants in charge of the funds are usually paid much less than the local PHARE experts who are supposed to assist them.
Interconnections between officials directly responsible for EU funds, other officials, politicians, interest groups, media and the EC can be taken as a basis. At the Lithuanian Ministry of Public Administration and Local Government Reforms – the institution responsible for the Structural Funds at the time – there was no resistance to the 'regionalization'. European Commission officials can also maximize their benefits by communicating popular positions in the public and restrictive positions – to the government officials responsible for the funds.
The lack of information on the rules of the EU structural funds and sometimes – the lack of knowledge in the regional economy, made the decision-makers not aware of the possible consequences of the decision. As a result, only a few civil servants who directly run the sector could have a good understanding of what is happening and why. How these constraints influenced the acceptance of seemingly irrational EU policy demands needs to be explained [52].
In this paper, a presumption is made that the extent of the problems and the possible consequences of regionalization of such large investment resources were known to the civil servants in charge of the funds' planning and management. Issues of the EU Structural Funds are 'foreign' to the policy-making systems in the region, and the systems are not adapted to the process of fair consideration, although significant improvements took place in 2001-2003. Therefore, the DG was the catalyst for the appearance of supraregionalization in investment planning.
Social Responsibility in Governmental Action – the Other Selected Cases
- What are the Policy Areas and How They Are Influenced
- The Decisions
- The Assessment of the EU Influence
- The Actors and Outcomes
- The Analytical Conclusion
As a result, the relationship between the EU officials directly in charge of the accession and the officials of accession countries can sometimes become the master-agent relations. In the case of the aid programs, the situation may become similar to the one described in the field of regional policy and the EU structural funds. One of the areas that is very strongly influenced by the European Commission is the public internal financial control.
According to unofficial sources at the Lithuanian Ministry of Finance, the position of the European. According to the same sources, the influence of individual employees of the European Commission on the formation of national policies in these areas in the accession countries is really enormous. As stated during an interview with an official of the Lithuanian Ministry of Finance, “The European Commission predetermines almost everything.
An independent review of public internal financial control was ordered (and carried out by the OECD). Without the EU pressure, the money-saving approach of the national authorities would hardly have made such significant progress possible. However, the very position of the EU to necessarily close these objects is quite controversial.
The role of single officials both in the EU and the Lithuanian national administration was mostly related to the implementation of the well-understood political will. As already mentioned, this approach of the Lithuanian officials caused very bad official statements from the European Commission about the progress towards accession in the area of financial control. The national actions almost always followed the political demands of EU officials.
The officials who were directly responsible for the issues basically followed the same behavior as in the case of the regional policy.
Policy Recommendations
In general, the cases presented in this subsection show that the master-agent relationship between the EU and national officials in the acceding countries exists not only in regional policy and EU structural funds (a vital area of EU influence on the national economy), but also in other areas. The Assessment of the Impact of EU Regional Policy on the Administrative Structures of Lithuania, Open Society Fund, Vilnius. 2000), Problems at national level in the management of the Structural Funds, Budget series, BUDG 109 EN, Directorate-General for Research, European Parliament, Brussels.
543 of May 14, 2001 "On the Approval of the Order of Compilation and Implementation of the State and Municipal Budgets of the Republic of Lithuania". 478 of 26 April 2001 "On the Approval of the Order of Planning, Concretization, Use, Accounting and Control of State Investment earmarked for Capital Investment". 379 of April 5, 2001 "On the Approval of the Order of Evaluation of Implementation of Programs managed by Managers of State Budget Grants of the Republic of Lithuania".
Draft operational guide for the PHARE 2000 ESC funds, prepared in 2001 by the PHARE Special Preparatory Program partners, in cooperation with the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Lithuanian Ministry of Finance. 6] This subsection is based on the results of previous, unpublished research (the Master's thesis at the London School of Economics), supplemented with the current research of the author of this article. 11] The officials directly responsible for Lithuania's preparations for the EU structural funds knew in advance that the implementation of such a policy plan would lead to failure.
Thus, pre-accession structural support amounts to 5% of the national budget and a very significant part of its investment allocations. 26] For example, in Lithuania Regional Development Agencies were established in each county, with the hope that they would be key players in the management of EU Structural Funds. In some other countries, the staff responsible for the funds were eventually dismissed (Poland, for example).
52] As the Head of the Regional Policy Coordination Division of the Lithuanian Ministry responsible for regional development, I can affirm that the scale of problems that will be caused by accepting these policy demands was well understood by me and other colleagues in the unit. 53] This assumption is made based on the personal experience of the author of this paper, who was himself responsible for Lithuanian preparations for EU structural funds. 54] See Raagmaa, 2001, for the justification of the role of a leader in the process of economic transformation.
