1. European Administrative Space - EAS
Swedish Agency for Public Administration

2. EAS = the 16 administrations responsible for implementing the policies of the union
Trends of development
Trends concerning the institutions of the union
Trends concerning the administrations of the member states
Areas for initiatives

3. The IGC will strengthen the legal grounds for an explicit administrative policy
Certain fundamental principles of “good administration” will become binding for the institutions of the union (§ I-48/49 + § II-41)
European laws shall establish specific provisions in order to ensure an open, efficient and independent administration (§ III-304)
Effective implementation of Union law by the Member States will for the first time be regarded as a matter of common interest (§ III-185)

4. The EC-court has during a long time created a legal praxis for the EU-institutions
All decisions should be motivated correctly
All directly involved parties has the right to be heard in administrative cases
All relevant facts must be collected in all administrative cases
Only a narrow strata of civil servants are exempted from the principle of free movement (§ 39.4)

5. The attempts to initiate an administrative law for the institutions of the union seems to have lost momentum
The Ombudsman created a Code of Good Administrative Behaviour in 1999
The right to good administration was included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights
The European Parliament adopted a resolution confirming the Code and asked the commission to propose a regulation based on the Code

6. The commission attempts to modernise its organisation and externalise non-core tasks
Externalise non-core tasks to
Regulatory agencies
Networks of national administrations
Target-based tripartite contracts
Modernise their organisational culture and personnel policies
Improve routines of consultation and dialogue
Formalise the usage of expertise

7. Secondary law creates a growing but unclear pressure for change on the member states administrations
Most secondary laws impose some kind of conditions for implementation
Some imply simple organisational change, some imply more complex changes that can ultimately can challenge fundamental principles of the administrative doctrine of a member state
The borderline between sector-based and administrative politics becomes blurred

8. The financial assistance for institutional building measures will be phased out as the new member states become full members
The commission runs the Phare programme that supports institution-building in the new member states
Some countries still have some way to go in terms of administrative capacity for implementing the EC-law

9. The development of e-government creates a pressure of change directed towards the member states administrations
The commission pursues several programmes devoted to developing methods for e-government
The focus now seems to have shifted towards legal and organisational changes necessary to support the development of e-government

10. EPAN has plays a relatively minor role in the development of EAS
Issues of personnel policies
Benchmarking
Common Assessment Framework
E-government
No focus on the general development of the European Administrative Space

11. The European Ministers responsible for administrative politics has only a marginal impact on the direction of the development
The informal meetings of the ministers responsible for administrative politics play only a marginal role
The development is instead the result of disparate legal and political initiatives driven by different actors, formerly the European Court, Ombudsman and Parliament

12. Areas for initiatives
If the new constitution provides new legal foundations for “good governance, what should “good governance” of the European Union mean concretely and how can the administration of the European Union be brought up to par with the best in the world?
As the financial assistance for institutional building measures in the candidate countries gradually fades out how can concrete measures of knowledge-transfer within the field of administrative politics be institutionalised between ‘old’ and ‘new’ member states?
Can a mechanism be set up to keep track of the borderline between sector-based politics and administrative politics?