On June 9, Group for Legal and Political Studies (GLPS) organized a Roundtable Discussion on the topic: “PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM: Where does Kosovo stand compared to the countries of the region for 2019 and 2020?”  The aim of this event was to present the findings of the National Monitoring Report on Public Administration Reform (PAR) 2019/2020 for Kosovo and to discuss the ongoing process of PAR with representatives of responsible institutions and civil society.

At the beginning of the discussion, GLPS presented a draft report that provided a civil society perspective on the implementation of PAR compared to the countries of the Western Balkans. The monitoring results suggested that Kosovo has performed better in the field of Service Delivery but there has been a decline or stagnation in almost all other areas, especially in the area of Policy Development and Coordination. The findings place Kosovo in a not-so-good position in terms of Public Administration resources and strategies. It was also concluded by the report that Kosovo has not performed well either in involving civil society in drafting strategic documents or in publishing information on Government performance. The findings of the report presented also suggested that half of the surveyed civil servants believe that in order to be employed in the Public Administration; one should have a political connection. In addition, the survey conducted by GLPS, concluded that civil servants do not feel safe to report cases of corruption or illegality in the institutions where they work.

During the roundtable, the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mr. Dobra agreed that PAR has not been implemented satisfactorily until now, a process that has been also worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Dobra pledged, among other things, that the new government will work on the development of the e-Government Strategy, to enable the digitalization of public services.

In continuation, Mr. Brusa pointed out that the initiative for the legislative package of three laws, The Law on Civil Servants, The Law on Salaries, and The Law on The Organization and Functioning of the State Administration, was an initiative on the right track for the implementation of PAR. According to him, the reform for the rationalization of Independent Agencies also spoke about the same thing, but the stagnation in its implementation shows that there is still a lot of work to be done in this direction. Mr. Virant also stressed that the implementation of policies and strategies in all Western Balkan countries is not at the satisfactory level. At the same time, he pointed out that this non-implementation is also related to the creation of policies, which are too ambitious and not based on concrete data from the real situation.

On the other hand, Mr. Shamolli pointed out that the reform process is complex but not unreachable; therefore, the political will must be combined together with professional civil servants to carry out these reforms. Furthermore, both the EU and SIGMA / OECD representatives placed emphasis on an inclusive and realistic approach to the implementation of new PAR legislation, which is complete and evaluated.

In conclusion, the panelists agreed that the PAR should be the top priority of the Ministry of Internal affairs, and concrete results in this direction should be evident in the near future. PAR is highly important for Kosovo’s journey to EU integration, thus, there should be a special attention by the institutions and political entities to push forward this crucial process. 

Panelists:

Mr. Bardhyl DOBRA – Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Internal Affairs;

Mr. Luigi BRUSA – Head of Cooperation Section at the EU Office in Kosovo;

Mr. Gregory VIRANT – Head of SIGMA/OECD;

Mr. Naser SHAMOLLI – Senior Research Fellow at GLPS;

Ms. Ratka SEKULOVIC – Head of the Regional School for Public Administration (RESPA);

Ms. Lirika AGUSHOLLI – Co-author of the WeBER National PAR Monitor Report, GLPS

This event was organized within the framework of the project titled: “