Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Review of the collective book directed by Bernabé Aldeguer Cerdá y Gema Pastor Albaladejo, Democracy, government and contemporary public administration. Madrid. Tecnos 2020. 408 pp.

The agreements on Next Generation EU and the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027 are extraordinary milestones for the EU integration process. Both regulations not only have important redistributive effects within a defined timeframe, but also have an impact both on the distribution of budgetary authority and competences, e.g. by strengthening conditionality instruments. In doing so, both regulations shape the hierarchy of objectives and the instruments of EU budgetary policies, especially in cohesion policy. This paper analyses the impact of NGEU and the MFF 2021-2027 on the distribution of authority in the EU Multi-Level Governance system.

Review of the book from Juan José Rastrollo Suárez, Crisis, reacción y evolución: el teletrabajo en el sector público, Thomson Reuters Aranzadi, 2021, 183 pp.

The literature emphasizes the importance of strengthening the administrative capacity of States to guarantee an efficient use of EU funds. In the context of the Spanish Plan of Recovery, Transformation and Resiliency to distribute Next Generation EU funds, this article explores the role of the Spanish parliament in the improvement of this administrative capacity. We argue that it can contribute in two ways. First, reinforcing the accountability of public administration. Second, promoting the participation of authorities and public officials in the design and analysis of public policies. With the goal to explore how the parliament has developed these functions, the article analyzes the parliamentary control activity on public administrations during the period 1979-2019, based on the study of parliamentary questions introduced in plenary sessions and committees. It also take into account all the parliamentary appearances of public officials and authorities for the period 1986-2019. Results illustrate, on the one hand, that political control on public administrations is very low and, even if it has diversified compared to the eighties, it has significantly decreased over time. On the other hand, the participation of public officials and authorities takes place mainly on economy and budget issues, and through posts of political confidence, more than with a technical profile.

Review of monographic section and dossier of issue 63 of the Revista Catalana de Dret Públic: The NextGenerationEU funds: challenges for public administrations, from Enoch Albertí i Rovira, Andreu Olesti Rayo, Stefano Civitarese Matteucci, Elisenda Malaret García y Xavier Padrós Castillón, María Amparo Salvador Armendáriz, Carles Ramió Matas, Alfredo Galán Galán y Mario Kölling (2021, pp. 1-117, 250-272). http://revistes.eapc.gencat.cat/index.php/rcdp/issue/view/n63

Review of the book written by Nicholas Charron, Víctor Lapuente and Bo Rothstein, Quality of Government and Corruption from a European Perspective: A Comparative Study of Good Governance in the EU Regions, Cheltenham Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2013, 251 pp. The quality of government is nowadays an important concept. The present work offers an approach to it both a conceptual and empirical level.

Institutional capacity has traditionally been related to the success of public policy implementation. Since the first analyses on why public programmes fail, the inefficiency of public organisations to optimise resources, produce results and achieve goals has been identified as one of the variables to which attention should be paid. This contribution addresses the capacity of municipal administrations in the field of local public procurement. Based on data from interviews with the staff and heads of service in municipalities of the Region of Madrid, the work explores the challenges faced by public contract managers, as well as the tools available to them for organisational learning. Among the findings emerges a management complexity derived from the deep reform operated through the Public Sector Contracts Law (2017) that has not been accompanied by sufficient capacity-building tools adapted to the reality of these administrations. But also, the resilience of contract managers who use informal channels to advance the necessary knowledge to perform their work.

In July 2020, the European Commission agreed on an aid package, the so-called Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRM), for which Spain would receive no less than 140 billion. For its management, the government developed the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan where, in addition, it would establish not only what investment project would be made but also the reforms to be applied. However, the recent experience of the Spanish administration revealed a significant difficulty in executing the European funds associated with the Multiannual Financial Framework 14-20. This difficulty, of which both the Spanish administration itself and the European Commission are aware, forces us to review the determinants of administrative capacity in our country as well as the possible necessary changes. In this paper we explore the relationship between administrative capacity and execution of funds as well as the necessary actions that must be carried out to improve the capacity and efficiency of administrations in the execution of funds that will be decisive for the future of Spain.

The Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan is presented as a great opportunity, not only to address the consequences of the pandemic, but also to face challenges such as digitalisation and climate change. The aim of this article is to summarise the key aspects of this Plan for Spain (financing instruments, content, type of governance and management), as well as to analyse, as far as possible, the role played by the Autonomous Regions within the Plan (co-governance), acting within the scope of their competences. In addition, after the first year of implementation, a progress report on its degree of execution is included, and some challenges related to its operation and evolution are proposed, in order to achieve better performance and fulfilment of its objectives. Finally, the main conclusions are drawn and a brief reflection is made on the possible implications of its implementation on territorial cohesion.

Review of the book from Karin Geuijen, Paul ’t Hart, Sebastiaan Princen y Kutsal Yesilkagit, The New Eurocrats. National Civil Servants in EU Policy-making, Amsterdam University Press, 2008, 176 pp.