Public Administration Cooperation Exchange 2023

Through the proposed flagship initiative “Public Administration Cooperation Exchange” (PACE) the European Commission aims at promoting cooperation and cross-border exchanges among Member States to build administrative capacity and prepare the next generation of policy makers in the European Union. The objective is to create a European Community of public servants that exchange best practices, including, where appropriate, working visits to relevant Member States to enable officials to acquire or increase their expertise or knowledge in relevant matters.

Context

National public administrations across the European Union are confronted with common challenges such as climate change, digital transformation or the effects of globalisation. These complex problems of multidimensional nature require cooperation among national administrations but also at European level, to best leverage all the knowledge available.

Many of the problems and challenges identified by the Resilience and Recovery Plans (RRP) or in the country-specific recommendations, addressed to each Member State in the context of the European Semester, cannot be solved by a single administration alone. Building cross-border understanding and acquiring an EU dimension perspective in policy and decision making is fundamental.

The Commission supports the efforts of Member States to improve their administrative capacity to implement Union law, which is essential for the proper functioning of the Union, and it shall be regarded as a matter of common interest. Such action may include facilitating the exchange of information and of civil servants as well as supporting training schemes.

Support delivered

The exchanges are taking the form of targeted study visits, where 1-5 civil servant(s) from an EU Member State authority are embedded to an EU peer administration from 5 days to 3 months. The estimated date of the exchange(s) is to take place between May 2023 to May 2024.

The costs for the exchange that will be covered by the TSI including travel to and from the place of exchange and per diems for participants for each day of the visit.

Results achieved

Under TSI 2023, the first round of implementation of PACE, approximately 300 civil servants, from 18 Member States, are participating in around 70 exchanges. Participants can learn from the working methods and culture of other EU public administrations in selected areas, such as the green and digital transition, professionalisation of the public administration and the management of EU instruments.

In more detail, the areas presented in the flagship were:

• Digital transformation (including: Governance and strategic management; Reengineering of internal processes; Design and maturity of digital services for the Single Digital Gateway; Specific experience linked with 2030 targets of the Digital Compass and reforms and investments planned under the national Recovery and Resilience Plan; Digitalisation of the justice system)
• Green transformation (including: Sustainable public procurement and budgeting; Greening the tax system; Support on how to gradually eliminate subsidies to fossil fuels, monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and adopt carbon pricing; Green digitalisation and greening of the administration itself)
• Improvement of public administration performance (including: Promoting better understanding on how to design, monitor and evaluate public policies; Use of analytical data; Improvement of multi-level governance; Set up and management of shared services; Development of crisis management)
• Professionalisation of public administration (including: Strategies and models to attract talent and for career development; Strategies and models for modernising human resources; Promotion of leadership and organisational learning)
• Management of investments and implementation of EU instruments (including: Preparation, management and evaluation of EU programmes and projects; Coordination, supervision and monitoring of the Recovery and Resilience Plans)

Useful links

PACE TSI 2023: https://reform-support.ec.europa.eu/pace-public-administration-cooperation-exchange_en

PACE TSI 2024: https://reform-support.ec.europa.eu/tsi-2024-flagship-pace-public-administration-cooperation-exchange_en