Volume 3 (2010): Issue 1 (July 2010)

The main message of this paper is that in the EU, the deficit is bigger in the effectiveness or performance than the often-mentioned democratic deficit. Therefore, it is more important and urgent in the EU to reform the "performance" than "democracy", although it may be even more important to emphasize that in the participatory democracy, it is in fact impossible to separate them, since the active democratic "participation" itself is the most important factor of "performance". This paper addresses first of all the challenges to the new member states against the background of the current institutional reform in the EU (Lisbon Treaty), which has demanded enhanced structural adjustments, such as public-administration reforms in the new member states. In addition, it also deals with extending European governance to two regions, the West Balkan states and the Eastern neighbours, i.e. altogether with the relationships of deepening and widening from the special aspect of public administration reforms. Basically, to a great extent, the West Balkan states and the new neighbours have similar problems as the new members: in both cases, there is an institutional "Bermuda Triangle" at the level of meso-politics, where the top-down efforts of Europeanization and Democratization "disappear". In short, the next step of democratic institution-building in the East-Central European new member states as well as in both the Balkan and the Eastern new neighbour states is creating or further developing the multi-level and multi-actor democracy that can be an institutional channel for their bottom-up Europeanization and Democratization.

The paper tries to provide one specific input for future evidence-based public policies in CEE. It discusses the role of New Public Management (NPM) in our region, with the focus on the new CEE EU members and their experience. NPM was, with very limited success, used in many developed countries at the end of last century. It was also part of several reforms, at least in some CEE countries. It may be "misused" for simple cost-cutting, but it may also be well used for better efficiency in the near future of public finance crises. The issue - our core question - is very simple: How to understand: "Adieu NPM"?