Jim Hughes Department of Government London School of Economics Houghton Street LONDON WC2A j.hughes@lse.ac.

uk Gwendolyn Sasse London School of Economics Houghton Street LONDON WC2A g.sasse@lse.ac.uk Claire Gordon Department of Government London School of Economics Houghton Street LONDON WC2A c.e.gordon@lse.ac.uk

The Regional Deficit in Eastward Enlargement of the European Union: Top Down Policies and Bottom Up Reactions Jim Hughes, Gwendolyn Sasse and Claire Gordon
Working Paper 29/01

ESRC One Europe or Several? Programme

Working Papers ISSN 1468-4144

The ESRC One Europe or Several? Programme publishes Working Papers to make research results, accounts of work in progress and background information available to those concerned with contemporary European issues. The Programme also publishes Policy Papers (ISSN 1468-4152) listed at the end of this publication. The Programme does not express opinions of its own; the views expressed in this publication are the responsibility of the author/s.

Working Paper 29/01 First published in 2001 by the ESRC One Europe or Several? Programme Sussex European Institute University of Sussex Arts A Building Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9SH Phone: +44/0 1273 678 560 Fax: +44/0 1273 678 571 Email: oneeurope@sussex.ac.u k Website: http://www.on e-europe.ac.uk

Jim Hughes, Gwendolyn Sasse, Claire Gordon

INTRODUCTION In the decade since the fall of communism, the concept of Europe -building has been stretched by the pull of two policy agendas: firstly, a process of deep integration among an historical core-group of EU states driven by a distilled notion of European exceptionalism; and, secondly, a process of eastward enlargement of EU

membership driven by the diluted notion of a wider Europe. Thus far, the inherent tension between these alternative grand projects has been analysed, on the whole, as a macro -level problem between supranational, transnational and national institutions and elites. Likewise existing studies of post-communist Europe-building tend to focus on high-level governance issues and developments, and overlook the fundamental su b-national arena of regional and local politics within and across states. However, if the deep integration of a wider Europe is to become a reality it must involve the expansion of the Europe-building project to low -level governance where in particular it must become embedded among sub-national elites. While there is an immense research literature on regional and local governance in western Europe and the term Europe of the Regions has penetrated into EU institutions and rhetoric, much less has been written about this dimension in the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). In the wake of the collapse of the communist regimes, scholars have explored sub-national administrative changes and the evolving mechanics of local government in the countries of Eastern Europe.
3 2 1

However, we still know very little about the institutional capacity, practices and attitudes of the elites at this level. The CEECs stand to benefit substantially from the EUs structural funds and regional and cohesion policies upon accession to the union, and the realignment of local and regional governance systems to make them compatible with EU practice and regulatory norms has necessitated major adjustments to their pre-existing institutional arrangements. Despite the crucial importance of this dimension, the link between Europeanization and regionalization has remained under1

For Wallace, the functional, territorial and affiliational dimensions of deep integration are essentially crosscountry in nature, while the territorial dimension hinges sole ly on border and security issues. (Wallace, 1999: 4-5 and 11). 2 See for example the work of Bennett (1993), Coulson (1995), Horvath, G. (1996), Horvath, T. (2000), Illner (1997) and Kimball (1999). 3 The authors research project under the One Europe or Several Programme? aims to focus precisely on these areas of weakness by employing large-scale elite surveys and interviews (n=100) in important regional cities in six states of central and eastern Europe; ESRC Project L213252030 Elites and Institutions in Regional and Local Governance in Eastern Europe.

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explored in the context of EU enlargement.

EU enlargement is reconfiguring Europe at large, but one of the most hotly contested zones of engagement over jurisdictions and boundaries is how the pressures for Europeanization as a conditionality of enlargement from without, imposed by the European Commission, are being operationalized in the candidate countries of central and eastern Europe. Two divergent trends are evident: a Europeanized regionalization is being pursued from above by national governments anxious to meet the EU conditionalities, while on the other hand, the Europeanization of regionalization has received a mixed reception from below by more pragmatic local elites within the CEECs. It is this triadic engagement between the EU, the national and the subnational level that is forging a radical transformation in regional and local governance in post-communist Europe.

Bifurcated Models of Regional Governance Regional and local governance structures across Europe are characterised by topdown and bottom-up pressures for democratising change. The historical institutional legacies are sufficiently different, however, to constitute a significant West-East cleavage. We can usefully employ a bifurcated model that divides Europe between western-democratic and eastern post-communist domains. Post-communist reforms of local and regional governance are often viewed as intrinsic to the wider process of 'returning to Europe' and 'catching up with the West'. EU member states are asymmetric in their patterns of regional and local governance. There is no uniform EU model in this respect. The diversity of regional and local governance has evolved largely on the basis of country-specific historical path dependencies and the interaction of national and regional and local politics. Nevertheless, there are indications that during the early years of the enlargement process the Commission actively promoted an implicit symmetric model for the CEE candidates as a way of rationalising their preparations for structural funds. Moreover, there was a widespread perception in candidate states that the Commission favoured a symmetric model that would reconfigure and harmonise their regional and local governance by establishing elected regional institutions with decentralised powers. The notion of a need to -2-

enhance 'regional capacity' became a fixture in the enlargement conditionalities for the adoption of the acquis starting with the Commissions Opinions of 1997. Over time, as the complexity of enlargement has become more apparent, this preference for institutional symmetry has dissolved as differences have emerged in different Directorates within the Commission over how best to manage the structural funds in the candidates. The existence of this strong push factor from the Commission for a symmetric model of regionalization in the CEE candidates is noticeably absent from previous analyses of the impact of eastward enlargement on 4 regionalization. The distribution of power between central, regional and local authorities varies widely in western Europe. As a general rule, this distribution of power should be viewed organically, as it is subject to periodic negotiation between central and regional/local elites whose interests and s trategies may coalesce or diverge over time. Since the 1970s states in western Europe have undergone major rationalizing reforms of regional and local governance that have reduced the number of territorial authorities, in many cases endowing them with new responsibilities, and in some cases devolving new powers. This process was partly driven by rationalizing strategies for modernizing service provision, and partly by New Right ideology that favoured shrinking the state through privatization and the use of private sector agencies. Recent studies suggest that the responsiveness of local and regional governance units to EU processes have been highly particularistic and can be categorized by a fourfold matrix of proactive, reactive, passive, and counteractive responses. Why one region in a particular country falls into one category or another is largely determined by two main factors: first, the EU-shaped priorities for regional development, and second, the attitudes of local or regional elites towards Europe.
5

This is an interest-based explanation that views the upward redistribution of power from central states to the EU through deep integration as having created opportunities for regional and local elites to carve out new functional areas and responsibilities for themselves. Consequently, integration has created a new incentive structure for local and regional elites. The paradox of supranational integration, as with globalization, is that it revitalizes territorial politics and the politics of the locale . Regionalization in western Europe, consequently, has been enhanced by processes at the national and
6

4 5

Mayhew, 1998; Nello and Smith; 1998; Tang, 2000. Goldsmith and Klausen, 1997: 239 et seq. 6 The revitalization of the locale is a constant referent in the work of Anthony Giddens on globalization.

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supranational (EU) level. While the power of the nation-state is weakened or subordinated in specific areas, both the sub -national and the supranational level are steadily gaining in importance. Despite the absence of uniformity in regional and local governance in western Europe the emergence of regions as significant political and economic actors has been contingent on domestic political traditions and developments . These historic path dependencies make for a high degree of evolutionary diversity and are, arguably, an obstacle to uniform Europeanization of sub-national governance in the EU. There is, at the same time, a post-Maastricht trend for increased regionalization through the development of meso-governance in the EU member states.
8 7

The gradual

entrenchment of diversity is most evident in the strengthening of the EUs institutional arrangements for regional and local governance, beginning with the Consultative Council of Regional and Local Authorities set up by the Commission in 1988 and reinforced in the Single European Act at Maastricht and by the concept of subsidiarity and the Committee of the Regions (CoR). At the moment the regional and municipal governments represented on the CoR enjoy limited consultative rights within the EU hierarchy of institutions; however, the expectation in the 1990s that the role of the CoR would be strengthened in line with the growing importance of regional government in Europe now looks more uncertain.
9

Though EU regional policy is closely tied to the dispersion of structural funds, the implementation procedures for structural funds are not universalized; rather they vary according to the institutional arrangements for regional and local governance in each member state. Thus, the dispersion of regional funds may not necessarily connect regional elites with the EU, in particular where it is overseen by the national government.
10

Regional authorities that are most deeply embedded in EU regional

policy-making are those from states that are federal or have strong regional governments, such as Germany, Spain and Italy. The obstacles to a uniform EU model for regional and local governance in the historic core -member states are also evident from the fact that the funding criteria for EU regional funds in themselves are
7 8

Bennett, 1993. Keating, 1993: 302-307. 9 Loughlin, 1996: 147-148. 10 In some states structural funds are controlled by central finance ministries (as in UK, Ireland and France). For a criticism of the fairy-tale character of the structural funds which are often treated as a reimbursement for national spending rather than a genuine instrument of regional development policy, see Keating, 1993: 299-

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an obstacle to deep regionalization, since they are determined by measures of economic deprivation that tend to cross-cut regional administrative boundaries. On the other hand, EU policy aspirations in key activities such as transport and economic development (in particular via the Initiatives) are creating a dynamic toward a functional specialization in policy implementation that requires coordination by or with regional level authorities. Moreover the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union and the prospective loss of structural funds allocations in favour of the poorer countries of central and eastern Europe have prompted some existing member states to rethink 11 their existing sub-national administrative arrangements . At the time of its accession to the Union, Ireland maintained a centralised approach to the management of regional and cohesion funds. Recently, however, Ireland has introduced a new regional structure to enable it to qualify for region-based programmes in the 20002006 round of structural funds allocations. The NUTS classification system has provided the template for this restructuring (see below). A similar pattern of evolutionary diversity in regional and local governance was apparent in the CEECs in the immediate aftermath of the breakdown of communist regimes. While regional and local governance under communism was relatively uniformly structured, it was heavily de-politicized and str ictly functionalist, with subnational units acting as an organizational pillar of the one-party state and central planning. Two main contradictory trends were evident in the post-communist era: decentralization versus re-centralization. The first trend was characterized by a decentralizing impetus in those states which experienced a fragmentation of state authority leading to a proliferation of local governance units (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia). This trend was driven by a combination of four main factors: firstly, new local government self-financing regulations provided an incentive for fragmentation in local government that led to the proliferation of municipalities and communes; secondly, it was partly an opportunistic reaction by sub -national elites to the weakness of central states in the early phase of transition; thirdly, the competition between central rush into nomenclatura privatization was reflected in institutional struggles between central
300. 11 To qualify for EU structural funds, GDP in a particular region must be no more than 75% of the average GDP in the Union. At the present time there is no region in central and eastern Europe where GDP exceeds the 75% average though Budapest (Hungary) and Llubljana (Slovenia) are fast approaching this level. For a map showing GDP per head by region, seeUnity, Solidarity and Diversity for Europe, 2001, vol. 2, 7.

and

local

elites

over

distributive

issues,

in

particular

the

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and regional/local authorities; and fourthly, this trend was partly driven by a democratizing counter-reaction to the overly-centralized and functionalist commandadministrative communist system. This counter-reaction resulted in the abolition or diminution in the role of regional government, a level which had represented the direct link to the centre in the communist era. Significantly, in many states post-communism led to a revival of local identities with historically bounded sub-national government, as in the counties of Hungary. Elsewhere, functionalist criteria were abandoned in the organization and orientation of regional and local governance, as in the new regions of Poland, or diluted as in Slovenia. The second trend involved a re -c oncentration of power to the centre, though the reasons for this varied. The re-imposition of strong central governance was driven by authoritarian reactions by central elites to democratic transition (Slovakia), or was impelled by the need for strong central government in states where sovereignty was perceived to be threatened by territorialized internal minorities or an external power (as in the Baltic states). In some states it was motivated by a combination of authoritarian reaction and fear of territorialized internal minorities (as in Romania). Consequently, by 1993 when the Copenhagen European Council meeting accepted eastward enlargement as a major priority on the EUs agenda, regional and local governance in the CEECs was not uniform but mirrored the asymmetric model of the EU, with a wide diversity of institutional forms and practices. Nonetheless, the CEECs shared a common starting-point: the two trends of decentralization and fragmentation of local government on the one hand and the re-concentration of central power on the other hand had temporarily deflated the importance of regional policy and regional governance.

EUROPEANIZATION AS C ONDITIONALITY Despite the fact that enlargement has been a recurrent phenomenon in the history of the EU, it is a poorly conceptualized process and remains so four years after Schmitter noted that the discussion about deepening and widening is taking place in a theoretical vacuum.
12

12

The current wave of enlargement to the CEECs involves an

Schmitter, 1996b: 14.

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even more complex set of issues compared with previous enlargements, primarily because of the simultaneity with post-communist political and economic transition and state-building. The literature on post-communist transition and democratizatio n generally analyses these as national-level phenomena, as embodied by national 13 institutional engineering and national elite pacts. Recently, while more attention has been paid to analysing the international dimension of transition, transition processes 14 at the sub-national level continue to be thoroughly unexplored territory. The evolution of Europeanization and regionalization as intrinsically linked processes during EU enlargement to the CEECs forms a convenient bridge allowing us a three dimensional analysis of the roles of the European Commission, state -level governments and the sub-national level. Conditionality as an international pressure exerted on regime change has been analysed as a factor related to the institutional preferences of international institutional lenders (IMF, World Bank, EBRD) in the pursuit of neo-liberal fiscal policy.
15

In the case

of EU enlargement a qualitatively different kind of conditionality is being applied. When we examine how the EU has addressed the issue of regional and local governance during the enlargement process we find a steady consolidation of a preference for a particular kind of administrative uniformity in territorial organization in the post-Agenda 2000 period. In effect, a new functionalist Brussels model for the reconfiguration of the territorial dimension of governance in post-communist states emerged. The EU institutional preference was shaped not by fiscal ideology, but by a technocratic approach to the management of structural funds instruments. Thus in the mid to late 1990s through its annual progress reports on the candidate countries and Pharesponsored regional programmes as well as numerous interactions between the candidates representatives and Commission officials in Brussels and the delegations in the candidate countries themselves, the Commission sought directly or indirectly to shape the process of regionalization in the candidate countries. Recently, however, faced with the diverse domestic conditions in the candidate countries and the difficulties of establishing imported (rather than home-grown) structures on the

ground, the EU preference for a particular configuration of sub-national administrative arrangements has had to be modified.

13 14

ODonnell, Schmitter and Whitehead, 1986. For analyses of the international dimension of transition see Whitehead, 1996; Grugel, 1999. 15 Schmitter, 1996.

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Enlargement and Catching Up with the Regional Dimension Enlargement eastwards to include the current candidates entails a territorial increase of 34 per cent, a population increase of 105 million, and the incorporation of new member states with diverse histories and cultures. It is also the first significant enlargement of the EU en bloc and, not surprisingly, requires a more elaborate set of guidelines and criteria. To some extent this diversity of political traditions and state capacity has been recognised by the fact that from the outset the process of enlargement has been essentially one of bilateral negotiation between the European Commission and the central governments of aspiring members from the CEECs. The conditionalities imposed by the EU, however, are essentially uniform. While the process of eastward enlargement has been underway for eight years, it was only in 1997 that the EU began systematically to address the dimension of regional and local governance. When the EU first acknowledged that associated CEECs that so desire could become members, at the Copenhagen European Council meeting in June 1993, it expressed the political and economic conditions for membership in vaguely worded and normative statements of intent. The so-called Copenhagen criteria laid down three conditions for applicant states (the stability of democracy, the functioning of a market economy, and the capacity to integrate) and a fourth condition related to the EUs capacity to absorb new members. Although the details of how these conditions were to be met were not elaborated at the time, by implication it was understood that some objective criteria would be devised by which to evaluate applicants. The fourth condition gave the EU a pocket veto on the accession of new members, since it would take the decision on whether it was ready to enlarge. Following Copenhagen, the EU pursued a pre-accession strategy for enlargement which focused on bilateral arrangements with the national governments of applicant states.
16

The strategy had four key elements; the Europe Agreements on the

liberalization of trade; the Phare programme of aid and technical assistance; the Single Market Commission White Paper of June 1995 which suggested a preaccession sequence for enlargement; and the Structured Dialogue which was to provide a multilateral framework of ministerial meetings by which applicant state
16

Grabbe and Hughes, 1997; Henderson, 1999; see also http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement

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national elites could be acculturated into EU norms. The bilateral strategy for enlargement, however, was steadily reinforced both at the Essen European Council in December 1994 and the Madrid European Council in December 1995. What is striking about this cumulative bilateral strategy is that the process of enlargement is inherently viewed as one for negotiation between the EU and the national elites of the applicant states. The paradox is that while the EU marginalized the participation of sub-national elites in the pre-accession strategy, among its main concerns over integration was the issue of how to best organise and involve regional and local governments. After all, the administrative capacity of these levels is seen as critic al for the success of the whole enlargement project. At Essen, for example, issues of regional cooperation and infrastructural integration via trans-European networks were introduced into the preaccession strategy, and regional development became one of the priorities of Phare. The regional dimension of enlargement also loomed over the Madrid European Council, as existing EU member states grappled with their own self-interests as to the implications of enlargement for the allocation of structural funds. It was only at this stage, two and half years after the Copenhagen criteria were formulated, that the Commission was charged to prepare a detailed analysis of the impact of enlargement on the EU and draft opinions evaluating each applicant country individually. The resulting Commission report Agenda 2000 For a Stronger and Wider Europe, published in July 1997, adopted a reinforced pre-accession strategy, which side-lined the Structured Dialogue and concentrated on bilateral accession negotiations and the applicant country-specific needs identified in the Commissions Opinions published contemporaneously. Hereafter, enlargement was viewed as a

monogamous affair based on the Accession Partnerships between the EU and applicant states. While emphasising that the processes of deepening and

enlargement were complimentary and feasible within the EUs resource ceiling, deepening in this sense referred to the nebulous expectation that candidate states must have the capacity to integrate and that Phare aid would be targeted to this end. Not surprisingly, the vision of enlargement that was promoted by the EU and the governments of applicant states was of a national one, symbolized by the National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis (NPAA) to be implem ented in each country. At this stage, there was virtually no reference to regional or local dimensions in the -9-

evaluation of fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria. The shift in focus from the national level as the unit of analysis was evident only in the Commissions Opinions on the readiness of each applicant state, as only here, for the first time, was regional capacity stated as a condition. The Agenda 2000 and the Commissions Opinions provided the basis for the decisions at the Luxembourg European Council in December 1997 to proceed with enlargement by commencing accession negotiations with five of the CEECs (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia) and Cyprus. The basis for the negotiations with these in states, which opened on 31 March 1998, is the condition that they must adopt the acquis communautair e. Their progress in this regard was to be monitored by the Commission in Regular Reports on each country. This condition is also the basis for the extension of the accession negotiations to a further five CEE states (Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia) and Malta agreed at the Helsinki European Council in December 1999. Essentially then, by making the adoption of the acquis the touchstone for enlargement to proceed, the EU has set the membershi p hurdle for the CEECs and other applicants at a height that existing EU member states have achieved mostly only after a long period of life within the EU. Only Austria, Finland and Sweden, all advanced industrial countries, adopted most of the acquis in advance of accession to the EU. Moreover in all previous enlargements prior to the commitment to establish the single market, the scale of the acquis and necessary adaptation was much smaller. This has made the challenge of the transposition of domestic legislation even greater for the CEECs particularly given the simultaneity of the EU alignment process with the massive political and economic transformation s which have been underway since the collapse of communist regimes across the region. With the exception of Poland, where regional reform was discussed as a fundamental part of the transition process, regionalization became a salient issue in most CEECs, only with the conditionalities imposed by the EU for accession, specifically the requirement to adopt chapter 21 (regional policy and coordination of structural instruments) of the acquis. While in Hungary reforms began in 1996 (see below), elsewhere the debates about regional reforms that had been dragging on for years were galvanized by the Commissions Opinions on accession, as the Commission identified regional administrative capacity as a core requirement. An efficient system - 10 -

of public administration at regional and local levels is seen by the Commission as essential for both the implementation of the acquis and the dispersion of structural funds. The Commissions drive for Europeanization is, thus, awakening and empowering regional and local identities in the CEECs, some of which have been long dormant, while others are being newly imagined.

REGIONALIZATION EUROPE

AND EUROPEANIZATION

IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN

In order to address the hypothesis of whether institutional choices for managing regionalization pressures have been shaped by historical path-dependencies or EU conditionality, i t is necessary to review the emergence of patterns of local and regional government in central and eastern Europe. By focusing on the first wave of applicant states, our analysis highlights both the similarities, as well as evident differences, in the administrative reforms embarked upon by different states in response to the twin pressures of Europeanization and regionalization from without and from within. Our discussion centres on the reforms and reorganizations that have been introduced in response to the demands emanating from the Commission and broadly outlined in the Commissions 1997 Opinions, the 1998 Accession Partnerships, and the 1998 and 1999 Regular Reports.

Communist Local Government The system of local government was relatively homogenous across eastern Europe under communism. While there was an extensive system of nominally elected soviets (councils) and attendant executive apparatuses at the local, district and regional levels, these organizational structures did not mask the reality of a highly centralized, Communist-Party dominated monism that undermined all semblance of local autonomy. While local councils were supposedly democratically elected, the elections were a sham as candidates tended to be vetted by Communist Party officials and in most cases electorates were offered no choice of candidates. Local councils and their executive apparatuses were subject to the dual oversight of - 11 -

superior bodies in the state administrative hierarchy and the Communist Party apparatus, which were organized in parallel vertical hierarchies. Local soviets had extremely limited resources at their disposal, and these were overwhelmingly centrally allocated and controlled. Given the lack of real autonomy, the absence of horizontal interaction across different levels of government, and the functional dominance of economic enterprises and their managers (usually subordinate to branches of central ministries) which often performed important service-provision roles locally, the 17 structures of local government were in essence hollowed out and ritualistic. These different functional roles made the dilemma of territorial versus sectoral control one of the perennial problems for the reform of local government under the communists. Though most CEE states attempted local government reform during the Communist era, none of these reforms fundamentally altered the highly centralized system of 18 governance and the largely impotent structures of local government. On coming to power the first generation of post-communist leaderships were faced with the legacy of extreme centralization, vertical top-down administrative hierarchies, weak horizontal networks, and a lack of capacity in terms of resources, efficiency and qualified personnel at the sub-national level. Such weaknesses were major constraints on local government reform. At the same time, in most countries there was an upswell of pressures in counteraction to years of central domination of the local level. In the heady momentum of democratization following the collapse of the communist regimes, the trend was for the extreme fragmentation of local government structures and ever smaller communities staking their claims to local self government. This bottom-up decentralization occurred at the expense of the regional level, which was either abolished (as in Czech Republic and Slovakia), became an appendage of the central government (as in Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania), or had marginal powers (as in Hungary).
19

Post-communist Local Government Newly installed democratic governments moved quickly to reform their systems of

17

See Illner, 1992. For a discussion of the influence of economic structures in local and regional governance in eastern Europe, see Illner, 1999. 18 Horvath, 1996: 27-28. 19 Horvath, 1996: 22.

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local government, the majority passing legislation in the early 1990s. Laws on local self-government usually granted broad rights of autonomy to the local level. In contrast, the new national governments opted to delay decisions over the organization and functions of intermediary or meso-levels of government. The reasons varied but generally included: (i) a reluctance to decentralize further given the exigencies of political and economic transition including the limited resources at the disposal of central government; (ii) hostility towards the regional tier of government which had been influential and unpopular during the communist period due to the pivotal role of regional party secretaries in the communist system of rule and economic planning; (iii) a lack of consensus about how to organize the meso-tiers; and (iv) an unwillingness among newly elected national ruling elites to decentralize and relinquish newly acquired powers to what were often seen as regional and local governments controlled by old communist elites.

20

Electoral sequencing also had a damaging effect on centre-regional-local relations and the potential for institutional reform. In many cases the different sequencing of national and local elections, combined with a natural political cycle, led to situations where there was almost permanent confrontation between ideologically opposed central and local governments. Such territorialized political conflicts have been an obstacle to decentralization,
21

and

indeed,

in

some

cases

resulted

in

re

-centralization .

The ebb and flow of transition politics has generally contributed to a democratic deficit at the intermediary meso-level of governance.
22

Nonetheless, the early reforms resulted in a firm legal basis for the jurisdictional separation of central and local governments, with a system of self-governing units at the lowest level enjoying considerable autonomy, and central governments exercising a strategic role of supervising the legality of local government activities and controlling the funding arrangements .
23

In the absence of provisions for the intermediary tier,

24

central governments ran the administration at the county level and above often through de-concentrated state offices.

Contrary to the processes of rationalization and reduction in the number of local

20 21

For details on the administrative reforms, see Galligan and Smirnov, 1999. Regulska, 1997. 22 Bennett, 1997. 23 Hesse, 1998.

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authority units that have characterized the development of local government in western Europe in recent decades, the trend in most of the CEECs has been for greater fragmentation. In Hungary the number of municipalities virtually doubled 25 between 1991 and 1998 from 1,607 to 3,154. In the Czech Republic the number of municipalities soared by over 50 per cent after 1989 reaching a total of 6,196 by 1993.
26

The extremely small size of many of th ese local self-government units makes

for a high degree of dysfunctionality as they lack a sufficient tax base to fund serviceprovision and that greatly complicated resource allocation by the central governments. The problems arising from the dysfunctiona l fragmentary nature of local government has been a disincentive for further decentralization, if not offering a rationale for recentralization tendencies at the national level. Attempts to amalgamate or promote cooperation among local government units such as in Hungary and Estonia have had minimal success.
27

COUNTRY CASES Czech Republic For much of its post-Communist history the Czech Republic remained a highly centralized state. Following the collapse of the Communist regime, the seven Regional National Committees which served as a conveyor belt to and from the Communist Party at the centre were abolished and the question of regional level governance was left unresolved for a number of years. The delay in establishing a regional tier was largely due to the opposition to decentralisation of the main governing party, Vaclav Klauss Civic Democratic Party (1992-1997) as well as to political conflicts over the number of regions to be established and what boundaries they should have. The main variants included the retention from the communist era of the nine districts of the Czech part of former Czechoslovakia plus one new one for Moravia, or alternatively, 17 new regions based on urban centres. Another proposal was that the country be regionalized or federalized into 13 districts based on the
24 25

An exception to this was Hungary where self-governing assemblies were established at the county level. Kovcs, 1999: 55. 26 See Bennett, 1993: 10 for a table on the number and size of local government units in postsocialist countries in 1993.

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historic districts of Bohemia and Moravia. Some opponents of regionalization argued that the Czech Republic should be considered one region comparable in size to 28 Bavaria and therefore did not need to be further sub-divided. Meanwhile the provisions contained in the legislation on local self-government contributed to the mushrooming of local municipalities (independently administered by an elected assembly) creating serious problems of fragmentation and deterring further decentralisation .
29

In effect the de-concentrated offices of state administration,

30

established at the district level (77 District Offices) to carry out functions delegated by central government, were the most powerful institutions in local governance. The

District Offices were headed by nominees of the central government and were supposed to act as a check on the indirectly elected district assemblies (composed of the delegates of local self-governments). These assemblies enjoyed the critical function of distributing budgetary transfers from the centre. This system was, in essence, a return to the bipartite administrative model of the Austro -Hungarian Empire.
31

Though the municipalities supposedly had a wide remit, the degree of

fragmentation at the local level meant that the District Offices ended up taking control of many of the tasks of the 6200 local units. Though the 1993 Czech constitution contains provisions for the establishment of regional self-government (a tier of higher territorial self-gove rning bodies), it was not until 1997 that the Chamber of Deputies finally passed a law establishing 14 regions (kraje) and only in 2000 that the legislation outlining the specific powers of the regional assemblies and electoral rules was passed. The first regional elections, in which only candidates from political parties were allowed to stand (independents being prohibited from taking part), were held in November 2000. Thus it is too early to comment on the functioning of this new regional tier of self-governing and how far the central government has/or will step back from its activities at the district and local level in accordance with the new Municipalities Act.

27 28

Davey, 1995: 69-70. Cited in Novotny, 1998. 29 On fragmentation, see Illner (1999). 30 See table of State Administrative Organs Operating at the District and Regional Levels in the Czech Republic in Lacina and Vjadova, 2000: 263. 31 Galligan and Smilov, 1999: 50.

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Estonia The revitalization of socialist self-government at the local level was one of the central elements of Gorbachevs perestroika. The democratization of local government proceeded slowly at first, but accelerated as Estonia moved towards independence in 1989-1991. By 1993 Estonia had a two tier system of local self-government comprising local self-government units at both the municipal and county level.

Contrary to the majority of CEECs where the trend has been towards more decentralization, in 1993 Estonia rationalised its local self-government into a one tier vertical, centralised structure. The elected intermediary tier of local self-government at the county level was replaced by an appointed stratum of state administrative officials. The single tier system of local self-government includes 254 municipalities (45 urban and 2009 rural). Local authorities enjoy considerable autonomy, are responsible for administering public services and have their own budget, although they remain fiscally dependent on the centre since 65 percent of local government resources come from a share of state income taxes and grants. Locally raised fund s represent around 10 per cent of the budget, mainly from land tax which local authorities fix and receive directly. County level governance is an appendage of central government. The fifteen county governments are responsible for organizing and coordinating the work of national institutions at the local level and for implementing national policies in accordance with the law and instructions of the government and its ministers. The county governor is appointed for a five-year term by the prime minister in consultation with local government representatives. The country governor is the executor of regional policy at the county level. He/she is also charged with supervising the legality of legislation adopted by local government units within their respective jurisdictions. Certain ministries also have single representatives or separate institutions at the local level. Consequently, there is no regional self-government in Estonia and little evidence of the existence of regional identities or strong elite support for meso government. Nonetheless there has been an ongoing discussion about a further rationalization and reduction in the number of counties and local governments. In addition to some domestic pressure for restructuring, further reform of administrative arrangements is seen as essential to create the more powerful regional and local administrative capacity demanded by the European Union. Moreover, given the small size of the - 16 -

country the large number of self-governing units precludes efficient governance and privileges the continuation of the highly centralised governing arrangements. Though a number of different proposals have been put forward, no consensus has been reached about the best approach to streamlining local governance institutions. As the Estonian Ambassador to the EU acknowledged: Estonia has been struggling with how to restructure the sub-national level weighing up both political necessity and financial reasonability. There have been some ten proposals. It is a highly political 32 issue. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of this debate is that strong local government may result in political power shifting to ethnic Russians in a few areas, including possibly the capital Tallinn. This ethnification of the issue of regional and local governance reform is a strong disincentive for change. A study completed in March 1998 proposed the gradual reduction of the number of local government units from 254 to about 150. This was largely to be achieved by a process of voluntary and later compulsory mergers of some rural municipalities and towns.
33 34

But the uptake on the voluntary merger scheme has been extremely slow.

Shortly after the current government to came power in the spring of 1999, the Minister for Regional Administrative Reform Toivo Asmer put forward the so-called 15+5 plan to concentrate local governments into the current 15 counties plus five cities. In the end the government stepped back from such a radical restructuring plan. Meanwhile in January of this year, the government mooted a plan to reduce the number of local self-governing units to 82 though the exact number is still to be decided.
35

Whatever

the final outcome it is unlikely that the political determinants of the single tier local selfgovernment system will be fundamentally altered. Meanwhile some resolution to this question is widely expected before the next local elections which are scheduled to take place in autumn 2002.
36

Hungary Hungary was one of the first post-communist countries to implement a democratizing reform of local government. The 1990 Local Government Act established a two-tier,
32 33

Interview in Brussels, December 2000. Janikson, 1999. 34 For details of recent changes in administrative divisions, see http://www.stat.vil.ee/pks/seelgitusi/htm 35 Huang, 2001.

- 17 -

non-hierarchical system of self-government at both the county and local levels, with 37 each level of government enjoying its own separate mandate and jurisdiction. The stipulation in the constitution that any enfranchised citizen of a village, town or county is entitled to local self-government resulted in the mushrooming of local government units (to some 3,200 local self-governments). At the county level 19 self-government units with councils -- initially elected by representatives of local governments but post1994 by direct voting -- were formed with a four-year mandate. Local authorities have extensive powers over local affairs and these are protected by the Constitutional Court. In addition, provision was made for a network of state administrative offices, independent of the county and municipal governments and responsible directly to central administrative authorities, ministries or the central government. These deconcentrated state administrative offices operating at the county level manage administrative matters that fall outside the authority of local self-governments in several areas, including land registration, tax administration, and public health.
38

A third feature of the Hungarian system was that Commissioners of the Republic were appointed by the President for seven regions and the capital. In effect, these regions were created on the basis of the communist era planning regions.
39

Their main

responsibilities involved prefect-like supervision of the legality of operations of local governments and the coordination of the activities of the local state administrative authorities. Given the fragmentation and lack of capacity of local self-government units, the number of state administrative offices proliferated and the Commissioners of the Republics assumed ever more active roles.
40

In 1994 the Commissioners of the

Republic were abolished and replaced by a system of public administration offic es (PAOs) in the counties and the capital but with essentially the same functions, though heads of PAOs were henceforth to be appointed by the Minister of the Interior. At the same time greater responsibility was handed over to county level self-governments. Thus under the two-tier system there was a high degree of jurisdictional autonomy between central and local affairs and also between the two tiers of local government.

36 37

National elections are held every four years in Estonia, whereas local elections take place every three years. After the 1994 amendments both local and county level self-governments had independent tax-raising powers. 38 For more details, see http://www.oecd.org/puma/sigmawe b; Bende-Szabo, 1999. 39 Horvath, 1996: 34.

- 18 -

Poland The accession to power of the Mazowiecki government in August 1989 and the subsequent implementation of Balcerowiczs radical neo -liberal variant of shock therapy led to a re-concentration of power to the centre. The 1990 Local Government Act transformed Poland from a three-tier system (regional, district and local) into a two-tier system with strong central government and local self-government limited to about 2,500 local authorities responsible for all public activities that were not assigned by law to other public institutions.
41

The 49 provinces remained as institutional

appendages of the central government, as did the 287 district offices of state administration that retained responsibility for the most important services. A Task Force for Regional Policy was established by the Mazowiecki government in 1989 (including politicians and experts) to draw up plans for the territorial re-division of Poland. However, interminable political wrangling over the shape of a meso level of governance, compounded by the instability of governments in the mid-1990s, meant that reform was continually postponed. Thus, paradoxically, in the first decade of Polands post-communist rule, a process of centralisation of governing functions occurred.
42

While some new responsibilitie s

were decentralized to the local level following the 1990 reform, the capacity of municipal governments to act was constrained by their weak fiscal position resulting in a return to some of the operational practices of the communist era. In particular, there was a resurgence in the power of sectoral hierarchies at the meso-level as regional administrative branches of particular economic ministries were established in some areas. Finally, in 1998 a year after the accession to power of the Solidarity Electoral Alliance-Freedom Union government, a series of laws paving the way for a three tier self-governing system finally made their way to the statute books (see below).

Slovenia As part of the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia was divided into 65 relatively large municipalities which performed the functions both of central state administration and of local authorities and enjoyed considerable political power.
40 41

43

Despite the institutional

Fowler, 2001. Regulski, 1999. 42 Gorzelak, 1998: 16-17. 43 Vintar, 1999.

- 19 -

legacy of Yugoslav federalism, and its close geographical proximity to the EU and west European states with highly decentralized systems of local governance (Austria, Italy and Switzerland), Slovenia exhibited no contagion effects to engage in postcommunist reform of its local government system. After independence, the administrative system was centralised though the basic structure of a state -directed fused system in which municipalities typically performed both state administrative and local government functions was retained. The new constitution of Slovenia was passed in 1992 making provision for self-government at both the local and regional level. But it was not until the 1993 Law on Local Self-Government and the 1994 Act on the Establishment of the Municipalities that the path was cleared for the establishment of local self-governments at the municipal level. At present there are 192 municipalities (11 of which are urban municipalities) which vary considerably in terms of population and economic power. No further steps were taken to establish a meso tier of self government.
44

Instead state administration was organised into 58 de-concentrate d

45

administrative units largely based on the former municipalities and inheriting many of the weaknesses of the former system.

Nonetheless the debate over the possible territorial breakdown of a regional selfgoverning tier has surfaced on a number of occasions, with proposals mooted to carve up Slovenia into anywhere from 4 (based on the historical territories of Kranjska, Upper and Lower Stajerska and Primorksa regions) to 12 (based on the functional planning and administrative units created in the 1970s which form the basis for NUTS III statistical regions) to 58 (based on the current de-concentrated state administrative units) regions. In the most recent round of regionalisation fever, spurred by the prospect of receiving structural funds for regional development, the government put forward proposals in March of last year for a bipartite division of the country into the city of Ljubljana and the rest of the country.
46

Though welcomed by the city of Ljubljana,

representatives from other towns have responded less favourably to the governments plan and have been demanding regional status for themselves. Thus in October 2000 the mayors of 12 towns in the Koroska region expressed their support for the establishment of a formal Koroska region. Meanwhile the Mayor of Maribor, Boris
44 Article 143 of the Constitution gives the obcine (municipalities) the right to create regions on a voluntary basis but no attempt was made to do this until 1998. 45 On the relationship between state administrative bodies and local self-governments, see Setnikar-Canka et al., 2000: 390-391. 46 Pozun, 2001.

- 20 -

Sovic, has proposed a tripartite division of the country into the city of Ljubljana region, an urban Maribo r-Stajerksa region and the rest of the country. No final decision has yet been taken. For the time being, the government is sticking to its plan and attempting to secure the passage of a law formalising Ljubljanas status in the current parliamentary 47 session.

PROTO-REGIONAL GOVERNMENT IN CENTRAL AND EASTER EUROPE Despite the shared characteristics of local government arrangements combined with a diversity of institutional forms across central and eastern Europe in the immediate post-communist period, the conditionalities of accession as defined by Agenda 2000 and the Opinions have induced the CEECs to introduce changes with the aim of stre ngthening their regional and local administrative capacity. The imperative of finding appropriate organizational forms to meet the requirements for EU regional and cohesion policies has been a catalyst for the reform of local and regional government in the CEECs. The Commission views regional governance units as the foundation of the European Unions structural policy and thus to a certain extent is imposing this model on the accession states. As one official in the enlargement Directorate put it: regional government was the golden key to the structural funds. Given their overriding goal to achieve membership in the European Union, national elites in the candidate CEECs have seen it in their interests to make the necessary adjustments in line with the EUs implicit model of regionalization . levels of governance in the CEECs
48

The institutional design of new mesotherefore, be understood as a

can,

development influenced by the interaction of three key factors, including: historical and spatial determinants ; conditionalities from Brussels; and the specific trajectory and political context of transition in each country. In designing a viable structure of meso-level governance some governments have chosen to build on pre-existing regional identities. Where such identities are weak or non-existent, this option is much more problematic. In terms of local and meso-level governmental arrangements, policy-makers have looked both to their pre -1945 past as

47 48

ibid. See Illner in Kimball, 1999: 16; Horvath , 1999.

- 21 -

well as to the systems of local government in western Europe and the model promoted by the EU. States that were formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, such as the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, and Slovenia, had the experience of a system of state administrative and self-governing territorial administration dating from the mid -nineteenth century and enduring in most cases until 1945. Conversely, Poland, which was divided until 1918 between the three neighbouring powers (Germany, Austro -Hungary and Russia) and then had an authoritarian regime under Pilsudski, lacks a tradition of pre-communist local self-government. Consequently, Poland opted to follow the Austrian and German systems of territorial administration as the model for its 1999 reform, though without adopting full-blown federalism.
49

Moreover, in response to the functional logic underlying the pressures emanating from the European Commission to establish administrative capacity at the spatial level above the county and local level, policy-makers in the CEECs have also revived communist era planning regions as potential models for the regional structuration. Inadequate administrative capacity, particularly at the regional level, has been repeatedly highlighted in the annual progress reports as one of the key shortcomings of the candidate countries in the area of Regional Policy and the Structural Funds (chapter 21). The sparseness of the acquis communautair e in this area - largely confined to the principle of partnership in the management of structural funds and the stipulation that these are to distributed at the NUTS II level
50

-- has meant that the

rather elusive notion of regional administrative capacity has been open to broad and varied interpretation. In effect the Brussels model aims to institutionalize administrative capacity at the regional or meso-level in preparation for the implementation of structural and cohesion policy in the future via the application for and use of preaccession instruments (Phare, Sapard and ISPA) in the present as well as through projects directed specifically to this end. At the present time 30 per cent of the Phare budget - the EUs pivotal technical assistance programme for the acceding CEECsis allocated to institution-building, with the Twinning programme currently forming the mainstay of the Commissions as sistance model.
51

However, there appears to be no

clear yardsticks for measuring progress by candidate countries towards achieving the state of having acceptable regional administrative capacity beyond the annual

49 50

Illner, 1992: 15. See Structural Funds Regulation, Council Regulations (EC) 1260/99. 51 See Appendix I on twinning.

- 22 -

evaluations in the Regular Reports which themselves are couched in rather general terms. The 1997 Opinion on Estonia, for example, merely stated that the main administrative requirements in this area are the existence of appropriate and effective administrative bodies, and in particular a high degree of competence and integrity in 52 the administration of Community funds. Similarly, the Commissions Regular Report on Hungary published in November 1998 stated: Hungary has not adequately addressed the short-term Accession Partnership priority relating to reinforcement of institutional and administrative capacity in regional development. [] Concrete implementation of regional policy objectives and the accompanying structures and 53 institutions is still weak. In general, the candidate countries have been encouraged : (i) to make further reforms to develop administrative capacity at all governmental levels; (ii) to make greater financial and human resources available at both the regional and local level to facilitate political and budgetary decentralization; (iii) to improve financial control systems at both the local and regional government level; and (iv) to increase coordination between administrative bodies at every level of government. Joining the NUTS statistical classification system is also a con dition of the preaccession stages, as it represents the EUs established channel for the CEECs to become part of the EUs regional and cohesion funds. The NUTS system consists of five different levels; NUTS II categories are the main instrument for the fo rmulation and implementation of regional policy in the EU. They provide not only the statistical information and analysis for regional development planning and programmes, but are also the administrative level at which structural funds and other regional and cohesion funds are managed.
54

The existing NUTS II regions in the EU were drawn up largely

55

on the basis of designations arrived at by individual member states and subsequently approved pro forma by Brussels. The reverse appears to be the case for CEECs,

as Brussels has deeply involved itself in the designation process. Although the Commission has not overtly recommended that the candidates should structure their regions according to the average size of NUTS-II regions, the Regular Reports have commended those states which have made reforms in this direction. This sends a strong signal as to what template is desirable. The newly

recreated Polish voivodships, for example, correspond to NUTS-II level regions, and Hungarys seven
52 53

Com, 1997: 102. Regular Report on Hungary, 1998: 33. 54 Horvth, 1998: 56.

- 23 -

planning and administrative regions created under the 1996 Law on Regional Development and Physical Planning are similar to NUTS-II regions (see below). Furthermore, some observers have noted how Eurostat has positively advocated the systematic use of NUTS -II regionalized categories in its interactions with the statistical offices of the candidate countriesan example of the standardization of planners promoting integration and conformity by stealth, irrespective of political 56 developments. Though candidate countries have also sought to manipulate this system in order to secure the best deal for themselves at the time of accession to the 57 union. Notwithstanding the assurances of members of the Directorate -General for

Enlargement that there is no single EU template for regional organisation for the candidate countries, there clearly have been different and shifting interpretations both within the Commission and in the candidate countries of concepts of conditionality in the area of regional policy, and regional governance arrangements in particular. More importantly, policy-makers in eastern Europe have detected and responded to perceived preferences in Brussels for the decentralisation of governance

arrangements to the regional-level. Since the commencement of the negotiations process, not only has there been an evolution in the European Commissions strategy on regionalisation in eastern Europe as part of the learning process in this unprecedented enlargement but approaches to regional policy have also been affected by the tension between conflicting aims. This tension can be summarised as a conflict between the currently incompatible goals of decentralisation versus control and efficiency, between (i) support for decentralisation as the Commissions preferred mechanism for administering structural funds in the Member States, and its preference for decentralisation as a means of facilitating democratisatio n
58

and (ii) a

technocratic emphasis on improving existing administrative capacity at the centre thus enabling the Commission to bette r evaluate the implementation of the acquis and monitor the use of programme funds. Though somewhat of a generalisation, it might

55 56

Horvth, 1998: 63-64. Hoich and Larisova, 1999. 57 The NUTS classification system is due to b ecome a formalised part of the acquis communautaire before the end of the year in an attempt to prevent further manipulation of NUTS II categories in the pursuit of munificence from the Structural Funds. 58 As Brusis, 1999, commented: The Commissions rem arks on regional administration indicate that its preference appears to be democratically elected regional self-governments which possess substantial financial and legal autonomy.

- 24 -

be suggested that the tension between these conflicting goals is in part a reflection of differences in the remits and opinions of the various departments of the Commission in particular, differences between DG-Enlargement and DG-Regio. Most recently this has been reflected in a debate about the management of pre -accession instruments in the candidate countries.
59

The process of adapting domestic institutions in accordance with the acquis has served as a catalyst for the reform of regional public administration in the candidate CEECs.
60

The response of the CEECs in terms of the institutional design of systems

of local and meso-level governance can be broadly categorized into two main types: (i) democratizing reforms specifically designed to promote an efficient regional development policy, and improve administrative efficiency, service delivery and the implementation of policy at the meso level; and (ii) administrative reforms aimed more generally at preparing for EU membership, including developing the necessary administrative capacity to access, process and administer structural and other regional development and cohesion funds. Some candidate states are pursuing purely administrative reforms, for example, by creating systems of regional

development agencies. Though these new structures are still in their nascence, they clearly have no political institutional component and their interactions with existing county and local government structures have yet to be developed. However, it is not inconceivable that such institutional structures could in the future form the foundation for an elected regional government. Moreover, while the accession states, with the exception of Poland and the Czech Republic, have generally opted for centrally controlled administrative Regional Development Agencies, the possibility of further decentralising reforms to create a regional governance tier continues to be discussed in some of the candidate countries. Meanwhile the Commissions initial zeal for regionalisation has been tempered somewhat since 1998. This has to a considerable extent given way to a more pragmatic approach to the candidate countries and a recognition that except in the case of Poland and Romania there is no need for extensive decentralisation of administrative capacities, especially given the continued lack of administrative

59

Interview with senior officials in the Regional European Funds Directorate, Department of Trade and Industry, UK, February 2001. 60 Regional reforms and adjustments are also under consideration in the pre-in candidate countries but they are at the preliminary stage of negotiations over the acquis.

- 25 -

capacity at the centre and the need for improvements at the national level first. The European Commissions recent experience in Romania with the collapse of the network of regional development agencies established with the support of the Phare programme and the current recentralization of regional policy management has highlighted the difficulty of attempting to impose templates without adequately taking into account the domestic political context and historical traditions. The recently published Phare 2000 Review reflects this more sober assessment: Regional programmes need not be implemented by regional structures. They can b e implemented by national ministries/agencies, if more appropriateThe need for [a] differentiated and tailored approach for each particular country is critical if the structures developed, strategies designed and programmes financed through Phare are to be sustainable after accession. However, in the context of bridging to Structural Funds, such differentiation must respect the conditions and requirements of the single acquis on Structural Funds and its supporting regulations.
61

COUNTRY CASES Czech Republic The impetus of preparing for EU membership, and in particular setting up the necessary structures for the receipt and management of structural funds, appears to have played a limited role in the actual designation of the 14 regions in the Czech Republic and in the design of the regional assemblies though apparently the real or imagined preferences of the European Commission were cited by some in the debate over regionalisation .
62

However, in response to the exigencies of the

accession process and to regional development priorities in particular, the Social Democratic government has moved ahead with establishing the necessary structures for regional policy design, management and implementation as part of its preparations for membership. The Regional Policy Principles of the Government of the Czech Republic which were adopted in 1998 specifically tie the definitions and principles of regional policy to the regional policy of the EU embracing the pillars of partnership,

61 62

Phare 2000 Review. Nowotny, 2000.

- 26 -

concentration, programming and additionality. In 1998 eight NUTS II so-called cohesion regions were designated and provision was made for eight accompanying Regional Management and Monitoring Committees responsible for the preparation of regional operational programmes. The members of these Committees are appointed by the Ministry for Regional Development, itself established in 1996, and include representatives from the Regional Coordination Groups, representatives of central ministries, parliamentary deputies, universities and NGOs.
63

In June 1998 prior to the establishment of the regional self-governing bodies, Regional Coordination Groups (RCGs) were set up at the level of the fourteen kraj (which correspond to NUTS-III units) and charged with managing the preparation of regional development policies in cooperation with Regional Development Agencies. Once the regional parliaments were in place, the RCGs were to be integrated with the Regional Management and Monitoring Committees .
64

In contrast to the regional assemblies

whose membership is restricted to members of political parties, the RCGs embraced members of the local and regional administrations as well as business

representatives, and in some cases people from NGOs and

environmental

organisations. Though, as Novotny has pointed out it remains to be seen how far these sub -national structures will become dominated by local political and administrative elites, once the regional assemblies and accompanying organs of self government are up and running.
65

Estonia

The question of regional administrative reform has not been absent from the policy agenda in Estonia but rather the lack of consensus has impeded any concrete steps. Various proposals for restructuring the county system into new regional units which would correspond to NUTS -II regions and thus create an appropriate institutional instrument for the management of structural funds have been discussed in Estonia in recent years, but no political consensus has been reached on the issue. Under the influence of the Finnish experience, which has been closely followed in Estonia, the

63 64

Novotny, 2000: 2-3. See The Regional Policy of the Czech Republic on http://www.mmr.c z, August 1999 65 Novotny, 2000: 14.

- 27 -

formation of four or five macro-regions for the planning and implementation of regional 66 policy has been considered . However, Estonia, as a small country, has no history of regional-level government or regional identities and our elite-level survey suggests that there was considerable ambivalence towards the idea of adjusting administrative boundaries in Estonia in order to comply with EU-funding criteria (see below). At the current time thinking seems to be moving in the direction of classifying the entire territory of the country as one NUTS-II area and defining statistical regions corresponding to the NUTS-III level based on the existing county system though this 67 has not been agreed upon yet. The strong culture for centralization and local control in Estonia is evident from the continued subordination of the Department of Local Government and Regional Development to the Ministry of the Interior. Fundamentally regional development in Estonia is viewed by its national level elites as a national level policy issue with government appointees at the county level responsible for regional policy

implementation. A National Regional Policy Council was established in 1995 to act as a forum for representatives from all the ministries as well as county and local selfgovernments with the goal of fostering inter-institutional cooperation. To date it has been little more than a talking shop and effective inter-ministerial and central-local coordination remains weak. With the assistance of Phare grants, the Estonian Regional Development Agency was set up in May 1997 as a national level agency to coordinate and provide technical support to regional development programmes and local Business Support Networks. In addition to the key ministries involved in regional development, it includes county governors and representatives of the municipalities and business association. The recent tempering of the regionalisatio n zeal in Brussels with the recognition of the significant problems involved in securing adequate administrative capacity even at the national level has meant that the Commission is now positively inclined to countenance a centralised approach to structural funds management. However, in the view of the Commission Estonia is still lagging behind in the adjustment of its regional policy arrangements. The

Commissions 1997 Opinion declared Estonias regional policy as weak and its institutional basis for structural funds management limited. This evaluation has changed little in subsequent progress reports. As the 2000 Regular Report concluded
66

Djildov and Marinov, 1999.

- 28 -

Estonia still needs to clarify the division of responsibilities between different 68 departments and institutions for implementing structural funds support.

Hungary Among the first wave of candidate countries, the EU has been actively involved in the regionalization process both in Hungary and Poland. However, unlike in Poland, the EUs Hungarian model was largely administrative in character; while substantial progress has been made in the creation of administrative structures, there has been little or no progress in creating a democratized regional governance level. Inevitably, the scale of Brussels involvement has given rise to local level claims of EU colonization at worse and the feelings of a forced marriage at best. As early as 1992 Phare sponsored a programme to facilitate the preparation of government strategies on regional development, an integral part of which was the development of institutional structures enabling the government
69

to

decentralise

the

formulation

and

implementation of regional policy.

Since that time through various Phare Regional

Development Programmes, Brussels has continued to guide Hungarian regional policy leading to the adoption of the 1996 Act on Regional Policy and Physical Planning, the completion of the National Regional Development Concept (1998) and the creation of seven planning-statistical regions corresponding to NUTS II regions. The creation of the planning-statistical regions and the provision for so-called developmental regions was in direct response to the perceived exigencies emanating from the Commission as part of the accession process.
70

According to the 1996 legis lation Regional Development Councils were to be established voluntarily at the initiative of groups of county regional development councils under the auspices of the National Council for Regional Development. At the end 1999 five regional development councils had been set-up covering virtually the entire territory of Hungary. However, the administrative organization tended to be skeletal, with few employees and limited financial resources and in one case, Zala

67 68

See Commission Regular Report 2000, Estonia, 68. Commission Regular Report 2000 on Estonia. 69 See Heil, 2000: 43. 70 Interview, Hungarian Mission to the European Union, December 2000.

- 29 -

county had joined two RDCs. Though the Commissions Opinions clearly welcomed the establishment of the seven administrative and planning regions and the system of RDCs, Hungary was still criticized for the administration of its regional policy via the Ministry of Agriculture and Regional Development in the central 72 government. Nevertheless, the Commission Opinion on Hungary of July 1997 acknowledged that it was the first country in central and eastern Europe to adopt a legal framework conforming to EU structural policy requirements and the acquis, although problems remain in terms of institutionalization and implementation .
73

71

In recognition of the progress on enhancing regional administrative capacity the EU, in July 1999, simplified and devolved power over Phare and other programmes operating in Hungary. Thereafter, evaluation of applications and decisions on funding were supposed to be taken by the RDCs subject to the approval of a National Office and the EU Delegation. Decentralization was needed to cope with the massive increase in applications. For example, between 1988-96 there were 57 Phare projects for Hungary, but in 1998 in the RDC of South Transdanubia alone 40 projects were approved.
74

However, apart from EU funding, the RDCs had a weak resource base
75

and, as unelected quango -like agencies, had difficulties in establishing themselves as effective and credible organisations . Moreover, since the focal point for local territorial

political identity are the centuries -old counties, the meso-level is characterised by a weak level of identification o n the part of Hungarian society. In the 1999 Regular Report Hungary again attracted sharp criticism for its failure to address sufficiently the shortterm Accession Partnership priority for regional capacity. By not assigning adequate human and financial resources to strengthening regional and local government bodies and advancing the goal of political and budgetary decentralization, Hungary was viewed as slipping in its progress toward accession.
76

In October 1999 the Law on Regional Development and Physic al Planning was amended to confirm the establishment of seven Regional Development Councils at the NUTS II level with (guaranteed state funding) and to define more clearly their role in programming and implementing regional development programmes. RDCs were now
71 72

Cziczovszki, 2000. At the beginning of 2000 the Ministry of Economic Affairs was charged with the overall coordination of regional policy and a new Regional Development department within the ministry was set up. 73 Horvath, 1998: 49. 74 Interview with senior official at the South Transdanubian Regional Development Agency, July 1999. 75 Kovacs, 1999.

- 30 -

compulsory rather than voluntary bodies and the number of representatives of central state organs was increased at the expense of representatives of sub -national 77 government and the civil sphere. This strengthening of the RDCs and the increased importance of the regions corresponding to the NUTS-II level was welcomed in the November 2000 Regular Report. Nonetheless the Commission still indicated that national and regional capacity enabling the implementation of Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund would need further significant strengthening, including financial 78 control structures at the regional level. Meanwhile the debate continues in Hungary about whether to divide the central Pest region into a Budapest city region and the rest of Pest. This is partly due to the recognition that by the time of Hungarys accession, Budapest may no longer qualify for Objective 1 Structural Funds.

Poland

Whereas the majority of candidate states have followed a Brussels model for administrative regionalization , the first democratizing reform of both regional and local governance in a CEEC was realized in Poland.
79

To a certain degree a political

regionalization was easier for Poland on account of its spatial size and prior history of regional government. Though th is democratized regionalization predates EU

enlargement conditionalities

for regionalization,
80

the timing and nature of the

regionalization has to some extent dovetailed with the ongoing preparations for and perceived prerequisites of EU membership. Nonetheless, the Polish reform that was enacted, inter alia, by the 1998 laws on county and voivodship self-government should be seen as an inherently endogenous development. Pursuant to the laws a three-tier governance system was created, with about 2,500 self-government authorities (gminas ) operating at the local level, 308 rural and 65 urban districts (powiats), and 16 regional authorities (voivods ).
81

76 77

Commission Regular Report 1999 on Hungary. Fowler, 2001: 19 78 Commission Regular Report 2000 on Hungary, 62-63. 79 The Czech Republic has recently followed suite in establishing a regional self-governing tier. 80 See Kowalczyk, 2000: 226, In respect of size they are the counterparts of regions in the countries of EU, and the government and the Sejm has precisely this in mind when they demarcated and assigned tasks to voivodships. 81 The final number of regions was the result of considerable wrangling between the different political parties. For details including debates in the Sejm, see Wyszogrodzka-Sipher, 2000.

- 31 -

All three levels have an elected council to supervise administration in their 82 jurisdiction. At the voivods hip level, state administrative structures are also present which mainly perform supervisory and inspection functions. The voivod who is appointed by the Prime Minister upon the nomination of the minister of internal affairs is the most important institution in the voivodship. It is the voivods responsibility to protect the interests of the state and to coordinate the work of the government administration with the regional self-government. As a result of the reform the funding base for the new institutions of local and regional governance was also considerably improved. For local authorities 70 per cent of revenues are derived from the central budget via tax-sharing and transfers, and 30 per cent are raised locally. Districts and voivodships are funded overwhelmingly from the national budget. The main responsibilities of the meso-level governments include: (i) promotion of economic 83 development; (ii) public services of a regional character; (iii) environmental protection; 84 and (iv) development of regional infrastructure . These emphases on regional administrative capacity illustrate precisely the kind of conditionality which the EU imposes, driven by the model of its own structural funds. Poland has also established a system of regional development agencies under the overarching mantle of the 85 Polish Agency for Regional Development . While the voivodships correspond to NUTS-II regions, their design was influenced as much by historical and other endogenous Polish factors as by European. This reform is an example of a CEEC responding both to regionalization pressures from without and from below, as there was intense pressures from regional elites for regionalization to enhance regional 86 economic development programmes. The Polish government has taken significant steps to address the criticisms of regional policy and institutional capacity made by the European Commission in the 1997 Opinions and 1998 and 1999 progress reports. In particular these highlighted (i)

82 83

For further details on responsibilities of local and district governments, see Kowalczyk, 2000. Upon accession to the EU, a significant part of Structural Funds will be administered at the regional level. Interview with senior official, Polish Team, European Commission, December 2000. 84 In practice the division of responsibilities remains unclear in some areas and the lack of regional tax base severely constrains the activities of the new voivodships. Interview with senior official in DG Regional Policy, March 2001. 85 See Djildov and Marinov, 1999. 86 In Poland, the first proposals for regional administrative reform came from the voivodship level when Poznan voivodship launched an economic development programmes. This kind of mobilization was exceptional. Horvath, G., 1999: 29.

- 32 -

the incomplete territorial administrative reform; (ii) the lack of legal basis for the implementation of regional policy, and (iii) the absence of a mechanism of 87 coordination of regional policy at the national level. With the introduction of the new voivodship and powiat self-governing levels in January 1999, the passage of a law on regional development in May 2000 and the establishment of a Ministry of Regional Development in June 2000, Poland is well on the way to meeting the EU conditionalities in regional policy.

Slovenia

Slovenia has been one of the slowest of the candidates to address the EUs regionalisation conditionalities, though in the past two years it has tried to rectify this. A Law on the Promotion of Regional Development passed in July 1999 established a system of twelve un-elected functional planning regions corresponding to NUTS III statistical units but without any accompanying governance structures. As an administrative reform for rationalizing the distribution of regional funding it was positively received by the Commission in Brussels which issued its formulaic approval: The law is based on the same principles as the EU Structural Funds and establishes a general administrative framework for the implementation of a regional structural policy.
88

As with the other candidate CEECs, the Commissions criticisms

concentrated on demanding more funding and additional staff for the regional level. Following the EU model of good practice, the law also made provision for the establishment of a system of regional development agencies under a National Regional Development Agency and a Council for Structural Policy. To date nine regional development agencies have been set up though questions still remain over their exact status.
89

As in Estonia, regional development is viewed by the Slovenian

central government as its prerogative, though in Slovenia it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Economic Relations and Development. In the meantime, the Commission has reacted with a certain consternation to the governments recent initiative to establish two large NUTS II regions on the territory of Slovenia. The new territorial

87 88

See 1998 and 1999 Commission Regular Reports on Poland, and Djildov and Marinov, 1999. Commission Regular Report 1999 on Slovenia. 89 Interview with senior official, Slovenian team, European Commission, Brussels, December 2000.

- 33 -

division is a source of concern, since it is not clear on which analytical requirements 90 and administrative structures the division into these two statistical units is based. Among other reasons, the government of Slovenia is evidently motivated by its desire to qualify for structural funds payments for as long as possible. Thus rather than be considered as one NUTS II region and potentially lose its eligibility to Structura l funding in the near future, it has proposed this bipartite split.

LOCAL ELITES AND EUROPEANIZATION IN THE WIDER EUROPE Institutions are the epicentre where structure and agency converge. The institutional framework shapes the perceptions and actions of the elites functioning within the institutional space. At the same time, the institutions are defined and changed by the actors at all levels of governance. In addition to the institutional change, resulting from pressures of Europeanization and regionalization from without and from above analysed above, elite perceptions help to gauge how deep the wider Europe already is. This important building block of the integration process is consistently neglected by the Commission in its Opinions and bilateral reports. The focus on compliance with accession criteria as a state-level phenomenon, with conditionalities externally defined and turned into national policy by the central governments of the applicant states, is a shallow understanding of the enlargement process. Though there is no area of local or regional government that is not affected by European regulation or conditionality, our research suggests that there is a relatively little engagement with and knowledge about the European Union among local elites in CEE accession states. This poverty of awareness affects both the regional and local prerequisites for EU membership, and the potential benefits from the funding of regional development programmes.
91

The lack of familiarity with EU institutions and

policies stands in sharp contrast to the often detailed knowledge of the local and regional elites about local government practices and administration in west European countries. This experience and exposure is the result of frequent visits, work practices

90 91

Commission Regular Report 2000 on Slovenia, 64. This section is based on 205 elite interviews conducted in 1999-2000 in three regional cities in three candidate CEECs: 74 in Hungary (Pcs), 72 in Slovenia (Maribor) and 59 in Estonia (Tartu).

- 34 -

and participation in different Europe-wide networks involving local elites. This may be a sign of the beginnings of a horizontal deepening of the integration process. Knowledge of democratized regional and local governance structures and practices in EU member states, however, is qualitatively at odds with the kind of administrative regional and local governance structures and practices entailed in the Brussels model of regionalization. Our research reveals that local elites in the CEECs are receptive to changes that will accommodate accession, even such radical proposals as the reform of local administrative boundaries (see Table 1).

Table 1: Attitudes to Regionalisation in Compliance with EU-Funding Criteria

100

80

60

Pecs: N = 74 Maribor: N= 72

40

Tartu: N = 59

20

Yes

No

In some places

Respondents were asked: Do you agree or disag ree with the proposition that local administrative boundaries should be redrawn, if necessary, to comply with EU funding criteria?

However, despite the fact that the regional cities of our surveys all stand to benefit considerably from EU structural funds for regional cohesion, this was not considered one of the key factors in local elites understanding of what the EU stands for (see Table 2). The benefits of the EU most often identified by local elites are those seen in - 35 -

terms of national-level referents (economic cohesion, free trade, common foreign and security policy). Subsidiarity, one of the EUs key principles for integration and regional policy, and structural funds, the EUs main mechanism of regional development, rank low down among local elites perceptions of the EU. In the case of the structural funds in particular, this surely must indicate a degree of ignorance of their meaning since we would expect local elites in CEE countries to instrumentalize the economic advantages inherent in EU membership.

Table 2: The Meaning of European Union

20 18

Pecs: N=370
16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Tartu: N=295 Maribor: N=360

- 36 -

The maximum possible score is 20%. Respondents were asked: Which five of the following phrases best sums up the European Union for you?

Our survey data suggests that social and economic issues linked to the transition process remain the dominant concerns of local elites, with EU accession or NATO expansion barely being mentioned. That sub-national elites are focused on the local issues is, of course, not a surprise. The focus on socio -economic factors is understandable given the total transformation of society in the CEECs after 1989. What is surprising, however, is the lack of recognition of the relevance of the enlargement process to the local problems of transition (see Table 3 ).

Table 3: Key Issues Facing Your City

80

60

Pecs 74 40 Maribor 72 Tartu 59

20

0 Politica l Economi c Social EU NATO Other

Respondents were asked: What, in your opinion, are the most important issues facing your city and country at this time? - 37 -

Most significantly, despite the significant EU investment in funding and organisation in the accession countries since the early 1990s local elites still have a poor or limited knowledge of EU programmes, even when operating in their own areas (see Table 4).
92

This suggests that there is a major recognition problem with the way that EU

programmes are delivered at the local level. One plausible reason for this low recognition of the role of the EU is the nature of EU/Phare programmes, which are organised through central ministries, are sectorally driven and rarely delivered on a territorial basis. EU funding is associated with the spending (and by implication patronage) of national ministries who supervise the dispersal to sectors identified as programme priorities. Moreover, though Phare offices have been opened in the cities involved in our study, these were largely Potemkin-like structures with no permanent personnel present (according to our own experience in the field). The exception to this trend was where EU funds were spent on infrastructural improvements that affected the locale, for example, on new roads or waste water treatment. These were, almost without exception, the areas where EU funding registered among local elites.

Table 4: Local Elite Knowledge of EU Programmes

60

50

40 Pecs 74 30 Maribor 72 Tartu 59 20

10

0 Good Limited Poor

92

See Phare Annual Report 1998 for Table of Total Phare commitments, contracts and payments by country 1990-1998. The total sum of payments amounted to 5,589.10 million Euro.

- 38 -

Respondents were asked: Can you name (up to) Three (or more) current EU funded (wholly or partly) projects in your city? (Answers were coded good if respondents were able to name projects and the source of funding; poor if respondents were unable to name any projects or sources of funding; limited if respondents showed knowledge of projects, but were unable to identify the source of funding.)

Further confirmation of the sub-national gap in the enlargement process was evident when we asked local elites about the benefits of EU membership. Perhaps the most widely held perception among local elites is that the potential benefits of membership are greater for the national rather than the local level (see Table 5). When taken together with the data presented in Table 3 and Table 4, it is clear that the decisional calculus of local elites in accession states is distorted by the focus on managing transition, and it is difficult for them to see beyond their own local problems. These preliminary results clearly demonstrate a regional gap in the enlargement process. It would be reasonable to infer that accession to the EU is widely perceived of as a national project by and for national governments and national elites. This is hardly a project for realizing deep integration.

Table 5: Perceptions of the Benefits of EU Membership

- 39 -

60

Slovenia
Sloveni a Maribo r N=7 2

50

40

30

20

10

- 40 -

Respondents were asked: How much do you think you country benefits from its relationship with the EU? And, how much do you think EU enlargement has benefited your city?

Estonia
50

40

30

Estonia Tartu N=59

20

10

- 41 -

CONCLUSION For most of the post-c ommunist era local and regional governance in the CEECs has been characterized by a high degree of fragmentation, by the absence of a politically empowered regional level and by a tendency for re-centralization at the national level. Similarly, for much of the period since the Copenhagen European Council of 1993 the process of EU enlargement has been conducted as a bilateral state -level negotiation, between the Commission and national governments of the candidate CEECs. The voice of local and regional actors has been barely audible and, for the most part, ignored. Even when regionalization began to be deliberated as part of the fulfilment of chapter 21 of the acquis , the process remained in essence a bilateral exchange between central governments and the Commission. From 1997 a Brussels model of regionalization steadily promoted an administrative, as opposed to democratic, solution for achieving a consistent regional policy and the institutional incentives necessary to enhance administrative capacity at the local and meso level.

Consequently, unelected Regional Development Councils that broadly conform to NUTS II regions have been created in the CEECs in response to the conditionalities imposed by Brussels for accession. In the cases of Hungary and Romania, in particular, the EU has been closely involved in the crafting of regionalisation. The compliance of CEE states with EU conditionality followed three variants which were influenced by the domestic context in the candidate countries: they complied in copy book fashion, as with the administrative regionalization of Hungary; or exceeded the demands, as with the democratizing regionalization of Poland; or, pursued regionalization as an administrative task for the central government, as in the smaller countries of Estonia and Slovenia, where regionalization has become a policy paradox. It remains to be seen whether in the latter two cases regional institutions will eventually take on a more political role and become effective regional governments. In this respect we should not downplay the contagion effect that is likely to come from the Polish variant of democratized regional government. The Brussels models is a stark contrast to the way in which regionalization has developed in western Europe, where it evolved in tandem with regionalist mobilizations from below and from within, acting as an anvil against which the drive for EU integration hammered the nationstate. Enlargement to CEECs is witnessing a different type of regionalization. Here it is induced from without and from above, through EU conditionalities and national governments attempts to meet them In contrast to western Europe, regional

institutions are being created in most CEECs prior to, if not in the absence of, regionalist mobilizations. Our research demonstrates that seven years after Copenhagen, local elites are disengaged from the enlargement process. It is not altogether surprising, therefore, that the Commissions Regular Reports of 1999 record a lack of sub -national implementation and enforcement of EU rules and policies which have formally been agreed to in bilateral negotiations with national governments. This gap between statelevel compliance with EU accession conditionalities, and their weak implementation at the local level is likely to persist until the divergence between national and regional level perceptions and engagement with enlargement is addressed. The question whether the wider Europe will become deeper remains very much an open one, and arguably it is unlikely to happen until there is a substantive democratising regional reform and active promotion of intergovernmental linkages across all four levels of governance: the European, national, regional and local.

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- 52 -

APPENDIX I: BUILDING ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY THROUGH TWINNING

The Phare programme which remains the key technical assistance programme to the CEECs currently allocates 30 per cent of its budget to institution-building.
93

Institution-

building has been defined by the European Commission as adapting and strengthening democratic institutions, public administration and organisations that have a responsibility in implementing and enforcing Community legislation.
94

Over

the years the Commission has honed its mechanisms for providing assistance in the domain of institution-building. Whereas in the past the Commission relied almost entirely on private sector consultants, a device which contributed to large scale corruption, since 1998 the Commission has increasingly employed the instrument of twinning to facilitate the building of administrative capacity in candidate countries. This involves pre-accession advisers from a range of designated administrations and semi-public organisations in member states being seconded for at least a year to equivalent institutions in candidate countries with the mandate to assist in the transposition, enforcement and implementation of a specific part of the acquis communauta ire.
95

In the first two programming periods (1998 and 1999), twinning was focused on four priority sectors -- agriculture, environment, finance, and justice and home affairs -though a number of projects at the national level were focused on the preparatio n for structural funds including a particularly large project in Poland (almost 6.5 million ECUs) which inter alia targeted the voivodship administrations and involved them in a range of activities directed at preparation for structural funds administrati on including regional training seminars and workshops on national regional development strategy, and one month traineeships for people from marshal offices in regional level administrations in UK, France and Denmark.
96

In recognition of the fact that regional

level authorities would be called upon to programme substantial amounts of money in often newly created structures, twinning was extended to the regional level in the 2000 programming round. As the Phare 2000 Annual Review stated: Unless addressed
93

Overall Phare forms 70 per cent of the EUs technical assistance budget to candidate countries, ISPA and Sapard accounting for the remaining 30 per cent. 94 See http://europa.eu.i nt/comm/enlargement/pas/Phare.ht m . 95 See http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/pas/twinning.ht m for a list of mandated bodies. 96 Covenant of Preparation for Structural Funds in Poland, PL 98/IB-OT-01, UK Department of Trade and

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urgently, this problem will severely restrict the absorption capacity of the candidate 97 countries in general and the impact of the Phare programme specifically. Thus significant sums of money are now to be directed towards (i) a regional preparatory programme for the Structural Funds in Hungary, the strengthening of regional policy administration, acquis implementation and internal financial controls at the regional level in Poland and the implementation of the National Development Plan in Romania. However, many of these regional twinnings are in their early stages, the project covenants are still being drawn up and the preaccession advisers have yet to be 98 appointed. Moreover, in the case of Romania, the new administration has scuppered the previous regionalisation scheme promoted by the EU country. Consequently, EU programmes in Romania have been stalled. The instrument of twinning which grew out of the city twinning programme was in part developed as a mechanism to replace the over-reliance on the use of outside consultants. The first twinning programmes were conceived in the environment of the post-Santer Commission. Fears of corruption resulted in an overload of bureaucratic red tape and unrealistic demands that twinning covenants contain a detailed preliminary accounting of how every ECU was to be spent. Consequently it took a long time before many of the original projects were up and running, which often meant that in some respects the needs on the ground had changed by the time the projects came on line. Though the process has since been streamlined, delays and bureaucratic obstacles persist. On the part of the candidate countries twinnings have been hampered by an insufficient commitment by the CEECs due to scepticism on the ground about the real purposes o f the twinners (there is a tendency to see them as moles of the Commission), political interference in the appointment of the leading civil servants, a lack of cooperation between different state organisations, and also ironically by the lack of absorption capacities, exactly the issue that in many cases the pre-accession advisers are supposed to address.
99

Nonetheless in view of the

largely positive evaluation of the initial twinnings, and certain teething problems notwithstanding, the Commission is in the process of introducing an intermediary technical assistance tool in between the short -term assistance (up to two weeks)

Industry. 97 Phare 2000 Annual Review. 98 See Institutional Building Twinning, Phare 2000, Provisional Results, Internal Commission document. 99 See Report on an Assessment of the Twinning Instrument Under Phare, July 2000.

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provided by TAIEX and the long-term twinning programme. This new instrument known as twinning light will provide for the assignment of civil servants for up to six months though unlike pre-accession advisers they need not necessarily be located in the applicant country. Though this new instrument is still in its nascence, it will in large part follow the procedures of its forerunner though whether the bureaucratic hurdles will be reduced remains to be seen.

100

100

For official web sites, see http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/pas/twinning.ht m and Taiex web site.

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