Public Administration in Ukraine: Adjusting to European Standards

In recent years many important developments have been observed in the Ukrainian public administration: reforms in the public-administration system and civil service, improvements in the regulatory framework for their functioning, extension of the rights and powers of local self-government, bringing their activities into compliance with the EU requirements as well as the transformation of civil service according to the European standards. However, reforming public administration in a post-socialist transition country is hampered by the lack of resources and by public mistrust. The Ukrainian state faces these challenges, as well, and it attempts to find the ways to leave behind the situation formed by decades of uncertain public policy and a flapping development vector. Since 2014 key events have taken place that dramatically affected the public administration in Ukraine, i.e.: the elections of a new president instead of the one who fled, the snap parliamentary elections, establishing new civil and military administrations, launching approximately 60 reforms aiming to give the nation a modern shape corresponding to world-wide trends. Special importance must be granted to the public administration (PA) reform because it plays a crucial role in securing the nation's success in global competition. The goal of this study is reviewing the most important PA reforms occurring in Ukraine (decentralization, civil-service reform, anti-corruption measures, transparency, reviewing the functions of the central executive bodies). The research questions embrace the following: (a) what main directions in PA reforming are perceived by the Ukrainian government; (b) how are the national governmental body's functions reviewed; (c) what are the obstacles and risks for PA reforming at the national level? To address these questions, the respective legislation has been analyzed along with some practical steps applied by the government towards the improvement of public institutions' operation. Our study demonstrates that Ukraine has moved quite a distance from the soviet legacy as concerns public administration; however, the country has not reached the point of no return yet: the positive reform achievements must be supported by steady efforts in order to make them irreversible and to significantly raise public administration's efficiency.