Civil services in the Europe of fifteen: Trends and new developments

Book abstract:

This work describes and compares the various civil service structures and organisations employed in the 15 Member States of the European Union. This second edition takes the impact of European integration on the national civil services into greater account and tries to identify the common trends and developments.

The first five chapters comprise a conceptualisation of the terms “civil service” and “public administration”, an analysis of the regulation of the public administrations in the Member States, a survey of employment trends in the public sector as well as a presentation of new and generally ascertainable trends, such as the growing influence of the EU on public administrations. Chapter six explores the principal criteria for defining the career system and systems with different structural characteristics, before applying these definittions to the Member States in the next chapter. The major part of the book, chapter seven, places key aspects of the civil services in the EU Member States in a comparative perspective. In particular it deals with working hours, pay systems, pension schemes, staff performance systems, mobility and the development of a code of ethics. Chapter eight applies the criteria defining the career system to the Member States and examines in which areas public administration systems in the Member States still correspond to this model or in what way they have other characteristics.

A final chapter considers whether harmonisation processes are taking place in the various Member States and what new trends can be seen. The last part of the book consists of tables, one per Member State, providing detailed information concerning the subjects covered in the previous chapters.

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