Bratislava, December 4–5, 2003
The meeting of the Deputy Ministries of Internal Affairs of the Visegrad Countries was held in Bratislava on December 4 and 5, 2003 with the objective to review the Public Administration Reform and determine its further development to be accomplished by the Visegrad Countries after their accession to EU.
Deputy Ministers of Visegrad Countries have agreed that the accession of these Countries to European Union constitutes a new opportunity for further cooperation stressing also a need for rationalism of public administration, preparation of self-governments to be able to withdraw the EU funds assistance and experience exchange of such areas.
Cooperation in establishing e-government and conditions favourable for general public to have access to information, in adopting anti-corruption measures in public sector and possibilities to improve Code of Behaviour of public servants is considered to be very prolific and valuable.
Positive views also have been expressed regarding the need to hold expert-group meetings and a range of topics for their further functioning have been identified.
Group 1—Public Administration Modernisation
- ensure competencies from the State administration to be transferred to the relevant self-governments and co-ordination of performance between the State administration and self-governments
- standardisation and quality of public service delivery, special particular attention to be drawn to small municipalities and co-operation of small municipalities in particular region
- legislation and control arrangements of self-governments carried out by the State
Group 2—Information System in Public Administration
- legislation regarding information technologies
- co-operation regarding production of personal documents, using biometric data in personal documentation
- mutual data exchange - possibility for the Visegrad Countries to co-operate
- communication of citizens with the public administration authorities, e-government, analysis of home web pages
Group 3—Training of tbe Public Administration Officials
- legislative, financial, institutional and other conditions provided for elected self-governments' representatives and employees, namely those accomplishing the State Administration assignments
- public administration management and work quality improvement
- preparation of self-govemments, and/or other entities for withdrawal of the EU fund assistance
- experience exchange in the field of combating corruption in public administration
Given the changes accomplished in the structure and organisation of public administration in all Visegrad Countries, the Deputy Ministers have agreed on mutual exchange of information in writing on arrangements and roles of public administration in a particular country.
With regard to further development of co-operation of expert groups and in accordance with the well-established mechanisms of working meetings, the Deputy Ministers of Visegrad Countries recommend the next expert-group meetings to be held in 1Q 2004 in the Czech Republic and in 2Q 2004 in the Slovak Republic.
Having regard to the experience so far they also recommend the working groups to work upon topics agreed and to establish conditions for negotiations based on possibilities of the three special groups. Introductory and final plenary meetings of aII three groups are considered to be an useful exchange of opinions and experience. .
The Deputy Ministers of Visegrad Countries have agreed the next meeting to be held in 4Q 2004 in Prague.
Bratislava, December 5, 2003
Josef Postránecký
State Secretary, Ministry of the Interior
Czech Republic
Jerzy Mazurek
Deputy State Secretary, Ministry of the lnterior and Administration
Republic of Poland
Martin Pado
State Secretary, Ministry of the lnterior
Slovak Republic
István Horváth
Deputy Director, Public Service Office
Republic of Hungary
