With the public sector representing 21% of the workforce across the EU Memeber States and over EUR 670 billion in annual spending, Otto Aiglsperger, President of the CESI expert commission ‘Public Administrations’, noted on the occasion of the meeting: “The many crises of the past years – from COVID-19 to the costs-of-living explosion, from the Russian war of aggression to millions of Ukrainian refugees in the EU – have impressively underlined the importance of public administrations. Considering the upcoming EU elections in June this year, we need MEPs that understand the value of well-functioning and well-staffed public services. They are the best investment for peace and growth.”

He noted however that public administrations currently face challenges that they must urgently deal with, such as ageing workforces and thus lacking personnel, insufficient investments in equipment and facilities, and lacking resources to manage internal adverse impacts and fallouts of COVID-19 and the digital-green twin transitions at work. In this regard, with a view to increase the efficiency and performance of public administrations, European Commission representatives gave insights into the implementation of the EU’s new Interoperability Act to digitalise public services, into recent national reforms of public administrations, into the European Commission’s Quality Public Administration – A toolbox for Practitioners which serves as a compass to support, guide and encourage a modernisation of public administrations in support of prosperous, fair and resilient societies.

CESI’s Expert Commission pledged to support the European Commission in the extremely complex endeavour to further evaluate the quality of public administrations across the EU and to refine its policy pointers for performing public services in times of crises and green and digital transitions.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “Yesterday’s meeting highlighted yet again the need for well-equipped and well-staffed public administrations. The recruitment and retention of qualified workforce as well as the integration of digital tools and human-centered AI should be the main targets for the public sector of tomorrow. If we want public administrations to be able to tackle the difficult challenges which lay ahead, more investments will be needed.”

The meeting also served as input to CESI’s EU-funded SYNCRISIS project which looks into needs of public services and their personnel to respond to multiple crises.