Annual Programme 2012: Transnational Co-operation and Public Services

Copyright CESI/Bruckner 2011

“The European Union is more than the sum of its states. We can benefit from Europe only if we exchange experience on all levels,” Wilhelm Gloss, President of the CESI Europe Academy, said at the project planning meeting for the Academy for the coming year, on 18th November in Brussels. “We want to address how the civil service is organised locally,” Gloss said. This concerns the specific provision of services in the local authorities on the one hand and practical co-operation across state boundaries on the other. “For the citizens, Europe is experienced principally in their everyday environment,” the Academy President said.

Public services should form a particular focus in terms of content work in 2012. “The state is always experienced by the citizens if services are provided directly on location. A foundation of trust can be created here,” the Academy President said. It is therefore important, for a departure from the unbridled deregulation of recent years to become established. “Particularly during the crisis, the state must maintain sovereignty over the most important services for citizens. In the long term, deregulations frequently create more problems than they solve,” Gloss said. In future, the provision of public services will be concerned primarily with ensuring a high level of quality, security, affordability and universal access across Europe, under the conditions of globalisation.

Moreover, according to Gloss, transnational, administrative co-operation should be moved more into the focus of trade union work in the future. “As trade unions, we have known for a long time that we need to organise ourselves on a European level. On local authority and regional level, there are also good examples of how transnational co-operation can work,” Gloss emphasised. Nonetheless, there is still a great deal of potential here, which needs to be used in the coming years. “Many challenges can no longer be overcome merely nationally. We will discuss solutions for how barriers can be overcome in practical work in the communities,” the Academy President said.