Countries that are candidates for European Union (EU) accession face the complex and urgent task of building administrative institutions so that they can fulfil the “Copenhagen criteria”. Such institutions must be able to implement the acquis communautaire within tight budget constraints and...

Central and eastern European countries have been and still are adapting their legal framework to the requirements of a Western market economy and the body of EU legislation, the acquis communautaire. As the harmonisation of the national legal framework to EU standards is one of the yardsticks...

How do Member States regulate their national public procurement systems below the EU thresholds and in areas not regulated in detail by the EU Directives? This paper provides the reader with an overview of different national policies, rules and procedures and presents common features and...

The aim of this paper is to explore the most problematic aspects of information access legal regimes and to provide some guidelines to policy makers, including legislators, governments and public administrators. The analysis is based on the comparison of Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs) and...

While defining appropriate roles for political advisers is a highly relevant topic in most democracies and especially in EU NMS, as well as candidate and CARDS countries today, surprisingly little comparative information exists. To fill this gap, in Autumn 2005, the Sigma Programme launched a...