Action plan for administrative and judicial capacity

Member States need an adequate level of administrative and judicial capacity to implement and enforce the acquis. This is why successive European Councils have insisted on institution building in the run up to accession.

A stable public administration with an independent civil service is a common objective for all candidate countries. Most have made impressive efforts in the field of public administration reform and have implemented civil service reforms. Some have taken steps to attract good staff and to improve their quality by training and better remuneration. Nevertheless, as reflected in the Regular Reports much remains to be done. In addition, a number of candidate countries need to intensify the fight against corruption.

A predictable and efficient judicial system is also essential for the citizen and business. Work has progressed on the reform of the judiciary in most candidate countries but in a number of countries the strengthening of the independence of the judiciary, the improvement of remuneration and working conditions as well as the training of judges still need to be further pursued.

In a number of chapters related to the acquis, the major challenges have been identified above (section 2.3.2). They concern the administrative capacity to ensure:

• First, a smooth functioning of the internal market. This often requires appropriate and effective regulatory authorities such as competition authorities, telecommunications, energy or transport regulators or implementation of appropriate information technologies.
• Secondly, sustainable living conditions in the European Union. This needs to be ensured, inter alia by assuring application of environmental standards, imposing appropriate levels of health and safety at the work place, ensuring a high level of nuclear safety and improving transport safety. These measures require a number of inspection arrangements.
• Thirdly, the overall protection of the European Union's citizens. This needs to be ensured, inter alia, by securing borders for a variety of purposes, adequate market surveillance for consumer protection, enforcing sufficient levels of food safety and co­operation in the field of justice and home affairs. These measures require various inspection and law enforcement arrangements
• Fourthly, the proper management of Community funds. This requires appropriate structures in central and regional administrations for application of public procurement rules, financial control, audit, fight against fraud and corruption.

The Regular Reports and the proposed revised Accession Partnerships identify in detail the areas where actions needs to be undertaken by each candidate country in order to achieve an adequate level of administrative capacity.

To identify the next steps, the Commission will establish an action plan. It will analyse with each of the candidate countries, early in 2002, their approach to implement these priorities and, if necessary, their intentions to reinforce efforts for institution building. Furthermore, the Commission will undertake specific monitoring actions, where appropriate together with Member States and the candidate countries.

The action plan will:

• be based on the priority areas identified in the revised Accession Partnerships, the Regular Reports and commitments made in the negotiations;
• identify actions already under way to build administrative capacity and mobilise further means to reinforce such efforts (using established mechanisms such as twinning or TAIEX ­- see Annex 3 and 5);
• confirm or initiate monitoring mechanisms such as monitoring reports, peer reviews etc which will ascertain the state of preparation of each candidate country.

The action plan will, as the Regular Reports and the proposals for revised Accession Partnerships, reflect each negotiating country's situation and take into account the accession dates envisaged by them.

Subsections

• Reinforcing Institution Building Actions
• Enhanced Monitoring
• Administrative capacity beyond accession