REC - EMTC: Insight 2/3: Learning to play the EU way

C O V E R  S T O R Y

Learning to play the EU way

The quest for European Union membership is creating a need for more environmental training in CEE, but the region still appears unprepared to meet the growing demand

BY DIRK AMTSBERG

READY TO JUMP THROUGH HOOPS: Nations of the region are willing to do a lot to join the EU, but they'll need training.

Membership in the European Union can bring new economic opportunities to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). But it also creates a huge demand for language skills, information technology skills, general management knowledge and an understanding of EU regulations. In short, training is needed urgently.

The EU has become one of the three great economic powers; its 370 million people make it one of the world's largest single markets. It is natural, then, that CEE countries would want to join. Being a member of the EU means better access to the European market, and it also opens the potential to receive EU internal funding as well. For example, the EU has regional subsidy programs that are helping the weaker EU countries lift their living standards to the average EU level. Another attraction to joining the union is the protection from external military threats.

So far, 10 CEE countries have applied for membership in the EU: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia. The European Commission has already chosen the first five, along with Cyprus, as potential candidates for the first accession round at the beginning of the next century. Nearly all other CEE countries have entered Association Agreements with the EU, which means they are likely to become members eventually.

Training boost

Along with the benefits gained from joining the EU, the alliance brings new obligations. These will come into force before accession itself, in the form of membership criteria. A certain degree of harmonization to EU structures has to be reached before countries are allowed to join the club. As a consequence, people working in CEE countries will need new skills and training. They will need to learn about the EU itself and about its structures, policies, and policy processes. They will also need training in transposition of law, implementation and enforcement. Language and computer skills also must be improved considerably.

While many of these obligations are not specifically outlined by the EU, the accession agreements do specifically require that the CEE countries' administrative structures and legislation must conform to the EU aquis communautaire - the common legislation of all the EU member countries.

With regards to the environment, the aquis contains 70 directives and 21 regulations - less than a third of the 300 pieces of environmental legislation currently in force in the EU. Potential EU member states will have to harmonize their legislation with the initial directives and regulations before they gain admission.

In the Southern Accession round in the 1980s, environment was not a big issue. Spain and Portugal were in some cases given 20 years after accession to comply with EU's environmental legislation. This time around, environmental legislation is likely to be the major hurdle for accession. Because of this, all applicants have already started to harmonize their administrative structures and environmental legislation with EU standards.

The process is beginning and there are different perceptions about the necessary time horizon. According to the report "Approximation of EU Environmental Legislation," published last year by the Regional Environmental Center, "There is a chance that within two or three years the environmental legislation of CEE countries will show high levels of compliance with EU environmental legislation." On the other hand, in its reviews of the CEE countries' applications (part of the "Agenda 2000" document), the EU Commission stated that complete harmonization will be achievable only in the "long to the very long term." Still, harmonization is expected to accelerate.

European Union reaches out to CEE countries

Countries in Central and Eastern Europe are working hard to learn how to comply with European Union environmental standards, and the EU is helping.

Ritt Bjerregaard, a top environmental official in the European Union, has held several meetings with environmental ministers from countries in CEE. A report written after her meeting with the ministers in September made the following statement:

"A clear conclusion from expert discussions and workshops between the associated countries and the Commission is that overall and sectoral knowledge of the contents and role of the European Union Legislation is still limited to a very small group of experts in the applicant countries."

Clearly, this statement indicates a perceived need for extensive training in the CEE.

For some, the need is urgent. A report from RL Newsline said EU's enlargement process will begin in March, and negotiations will open with the six main candidates - the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia.

SETTING THE PACE: Rott Bjerregaard, a leading environmental official with the EU, meets with environment ministries at the Regional Environmental Center in Hungary.

A need for management training

In the course of the accession process, training has already become a big issue, and Human Resource development is still one of the biggest concerns for most CEE countries. The accession process will boost these training needs even further. The actual training needs are broad, with a common theme: a demand for management training. More specifically, a large segment of the work force requires training in the process of planning and training in making decisions on the basis of information and judgment.

For different groups there are different levels of change expected. Civil servants will experience the most change in their need for training because working structures of administrations will change, workers' responsibilities will increase and new skills will be needed. Generally, EU legislation requires the incorporation of environmental policies in other sectoral policies. That means a different style of coping with problems for administrators. New training fields will emerge because of this development and because of the need for civil servants to get familiar with EU working structures.

Another key area for change is legislation. The process of altering laws in the CEE has already started and will continue. CEE countries still need training on the environmental acquis and its implications. Civil servants and lawyers have to be trained in transposition, implementation and enforcement of EU legislation. Furthermore, civil servants, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and businesses will need training in the new legislation and its implications for them. One example is Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) legislation, which has already been transposed in many CEE countries. As a result of the EIA legislation, civil servants will have to implement and enforce new measures. Industry has to behave according to the obligations EIA imposes on them. And NGOs are expected to take advantage of the opportunity to participate in an EIA process.

The expansion of environmental legislation and the increasing importance of environmental issues in other sectoral policies will create new training needs in new areas and deepen existing needs. But in different countries certainly there will be different priority areas, depending on their historical development and situation (see table).

WHAT'S NEEDED

Priority areas cited by training organizations in the region.

Bulgaria:

Water management;
changing legislation;
for NGOs, capacity building is the most important.
Czech Republic:

Mainly general management skills but also technical matters.
Hungary:

Water management;
waste management;
no general management training necessary.
Poland:

Waste;
water;
air;
management skills.
Romania:

Waste management;
environmental auditing.
Slovakia:

Capacity building;
technical training is needed as well.
Slovenia:

Capacity building.

WHAT'S LIKELY TO CHANGE

The quest for EU accession is likely to cause the following changes to current training programs:

General management training:

For civil servants
General administrative changes due to administrative restructuring and harmonization with EU standards.

For NGOs and others
General management training should stay the same except for a few courses in public participation.

In general, training contents are not expected to change much.

Legislative training:
Continual changes in this area are expected for all sectors.

HOW EACH SECTOR WILL BE AFFECTED
The quest for EU accession is likely to cause the following training needs in different sectors:
Civil Servants - Language skills - Information technology - Information on EU	NGOs - General management training - Information on legislative changes	Small businesses - Information on legislative changes

Needs assessments

Ministries of Environment are one of the largest groups of potential trainees. In the course of pre-accession they want more general capacity building for high-level civil servants on the national, regional and local level. With respect to the accession process, they consider improving language and information technology skills to be most important. The second order of wants affects negotiation skills and knowledge about the European Union in general (its structures, actors and environmental policies). In specific environmental management training they see a need, but not an urgent need.

Training organizations that are conducting courses for NGOs, small businesses and civil servants see different needs for different groups. Courses on EU structures and similar subjects are mostly of value for civil servants, but at the moment they are not of much help to the other groups. General capacity building is essential for everyone, and courses on changing legislation are important for all three groups as well. As a consequence, most of the training institutes favor a balanced approach that includes courses on capacity building and general legislation. Training institutions generally do not expect major changes to management training because current courses already teach a large amount of Western know-how.

Despite the legislative requirements of joining the EU, training institutions agree the biggest training demand will still be for general management training, with less emphasis placed on courses about the changing legislative framework. Nevertheless, legislation courses will continue to change, although training institutions say environmental legislation would need to be updated in Central and Eastern Europe anyway, whether or not the countries join the EU. The accession simply steers the direction of the changes and speeds up the process. Therefore, courses on the EU regulation system would be necessary, but maybe only for high-level civil service officers.

Meeting the need

Although the need is there and the demand is changing, there is not much going on at the moment. A few training institutions, CEE governments and the EU have all identified the rising demand. But so far they have met this need with only a few courses delivered in an incremental and ad hoc way.

Many training centers in Central and Eastern Europe have already conducted courses on EU matters. Most of the courses were related to legislative changes, and the majority were related to water management.

CEE governments themselves have done little to meet their needs, although there are big differences from country to country. Currently, the most common courses are in language skills, computer skills and legislative changes. However, these courses are given only on an ad hoc basis, which is not enough. For future generations of civil servants, some countries are dealing with the subject more strategically by establishing fresh training curricula in new or reopened schools for administration. These programs already meet the new demand created by the accession process.

The European Union has identified human resources as one of most important issues in CEE. In money terms, it is one of the most important assistance sectors. But the focus of their activities lies on restructuring and harmonizing the educational system as the basis for the future. Still, many courses in other training fields are funded and conducted by different assistance programs of the EU and its member states. Most Western programs just respond to the demand articulated by CEE governments, though over the past year, the EU has begun to carry out needs assessments for different training areas. Again, the area of environmental management training was neglected.

The European Training Foundation (ETF), funded mainly by the EU, has training programs in CEE. The ETF currently is not conducting environmental management training itself because they are focusing on general management training, which is considered to be more necessary. Another example of EU-sponsored training is a PHARE Programme project to train Polish officials on transposition and implementation of EU environmental law. Like most of the current training, this project is on an ad hoc basis.

Expertise money, staff and time lacking

If the need for training is so clear, why isn't more being done? Some institutions say they cannot find a training center that provides the training they require. This is true above all for the bigger companies. They therefore go west and hire trainers from abroad, even though it would be more efficient for them to hire local people that know the region, speak the language and cost less. Other obstacles relate to money, time and staff. NGOs often do not have the money to pay for courses. The same is true for small businesses and local, regional and national government agencies. They do not have the funding and they often they do not have enough time or staff to send people to be trained.

A lot of individual trainers throughout the region have not yet prepared for the implications of the EU accession process. In general, individual trainers tend to meet the demand of their clients in an ad hoc way and on a short-term basis. New circumstances leading to different demands may be related to the accession process, but for individual trainers it does not matter why it is changing but that it is changing.

Big changes already have taken place on the path to EU accession. Even so, governments and institutions are just starting to recognize the amount of training that will be needed. Although the speed of harmonization will vary in different countries, it will be relatively fast across the region. Most CEE countries see the accession process not as a common step but as a race in which glory goes to the first countries to get in. Because of this, training demand will increase at an exponential speed. Funding for courses is scarce at the moment, but it will increase the more the accession process itself proceeds. So trainers should be prepared to offer what is needed next.

REC * EMTC * PUBLICATIONS * INSIGHT * WINTER 1997