In February 2024, the Parliament launched the process of creating expert councils alongside permanent parliamentary committees. Until now, seven committees (Public Administration and Regional Development Committee, Economy Budget and Finance Committee, Public Finance Control Committee, Foreign Policy and European Integration Committee, Social Protection, Health and Family Committee, National Security, Defense and Public Order Commitee and Environment, Climate and Green Transition Committee) have published notices for selecting expert council members. It is expected that the other committees will launch similar processes in the next period.
CSO involvement in formulating effective policies
The new expert councils will include representatives of CSOs, academia and professional associations, and will:
- inform the committees about societal problems;
- contribute to the improvement of the legislative framework by drawing up expert materials, impact analysis and evaluations;
- elaborate and present comments on bills that are on the parliamentary agenda.
Expert council members will have access to all committee materials regarding the draft legislative initiatives under discussion. The expert councils will operate under the framework regulation approved by the Permanent Bureau of the Parliament by Decision no. 35 of December 20, 2023.
Robust framework for participation
The initiative to operationalise expert councils is based on the decision Platform for dialogue and civic participation in the Parliament's decision-making process, approved by Parliament in June 2023. This decision repealed the previous Concept of cooperation between Parliament and Civil society, adopted in 2005, which had not been functional since 2016. The Parliament platform is designed as a participation framework with:
- provisions on public hearings;
- expert councils at the level of parliamentary committees; and
- an annual conference with CSOs.
The first annual conference of Cooperation between Parliament and Civil Society was held on 16 June 2023. The event brought together over 100 representatives of civil society, the President of the Parliament, the Prime Minister, deputies, representatives of public authorities, the diplomatic corps and development partners.
In parallel with the Parliament’s initiative, in 2023 the Government also adopted its own regulation regarding a permanent consultative platform within the authority of the central public administration. The State Chancellery is indicating progress on this segment: a complete list of pre-existing and newly established platforms at Government level will be presented in the Report on decision-making transparency due by 31 March, 2024.
These new participation formats launched are the most extensive exercise undertook by the Government and the Parliament since a similar participation mechanism, the National Participation Council ceased to exist in 2019.
They are generally regarded as positive steps in increasing transparency and participation in decision-making processes. At the same time, some CSO representatives expressed concerns related to the over-regulation of the relationship between public institutions and CSOs.