Langzeit- und Querschnittsfragen in europäischen Regierungen und Parlamenten

EU+, 2000-01 / Report-DE
Deutscher Bundestag, TAB

The Issue
A multiplicity of political and social problems requires integrative and long-term approaches for a satisfying and sustainable solution. The increasing complexity of problems often is in contrast with the fast moving requests of political daily routine looking for simple answers.

Especially in the context of the debate on Sustainable Development political institutions in many countries are looking for new approaches to deal with long-term and cross-cutting issues.

The Project
On behalf of the Office for Technology Assessment of the German Parliament (TAB) the EURES institute has conducted an inquiry concerning the institutions, methods and procedures used by governments and parliaments throughout Europe for dealing with long-term and cross-cutting issues.

Our main focus lay on inter-ministry and parliamentary committees, expert networks and projects in the EU member states, the EU accession countries and the EU institutions themselves. Beside a collection of detailed characterisations of these institutions we examined the general political framework (political system and political culture) within each country as well as the way each country basically tackles long-term and cross-cutting issues.

On the basis of the analysis of national institutions and the national political context we finally drew over-arching conclusions and elaborated a comparative international overview.

Information about institutions, approaches and the corresponding context has been collected via questionnaires and short country studies prepared by national experts. The EURES institute processed the information, worked out a comparable profile for each of the examined countries and prepared the main report including conclusions and a comparative overview.

The Results

These are the results of the inquiry concerning the institutions, methods and procedures used by governments and parliaments throughout Europe for dealing with long-term and cross-cutting issues. It has been conducted by the EURES institute on behalf of the Office for Technology Assessment of the German Parliament (TAB).

On this website you may download printouts of the different country reports, the main report and the list of institutions/persons (you need Acrobat Reader). We expect that by the end of 2001 a complete database will be publicly accessible on this website.

All those who can acceed to this page are vividly invited to look up their own country and all others and to improve the information by sending us comments and suggestions (R38@eures.de or see page „contact“). In order to develop this information we are very interested in your feedback. In case we have not included details about your institution in our report and you wish to be considered, please fill in an “institution questionnaire” (a fresh one is downloadable below) and send it to the EURES Institute by e-mail.

With this report we compiled a variety of information which can also be used as a handbook. We hope that it is of practical use for the daily work in the field of long-term and cross-cutting issues. At the same time it may foster an international exchange of information and experiences concerning these questions.

However, the provided information could surely be improved. Since we would like to further develop this tool we would highly encourage you to send us comments and suggestions. We would also like to hear from you whether the provided information is useful for your daily work. Unfortunately some parts of the report exist only in a German version. A desirable complete English translation would require to find a source for additional funding.

Country reports

Each country report contains a brief profile/summary concerning the national political and institutional framework (German), a country study concerning long-term and cross-cutting issues (English), and detailed characterisations of long-term and cross-cutting institutions within the country (English).

The project has been finished in march 2001.

The report contains a main report (50pages, in German) as well as a series of country reports. The following countries/regions are included:

Belgium PDF
Denmark PDF
Estonia PDF (only characterisations of the institutions)
Finland PDF
France PDF
United Kingdom PDF
Ireland PDF
Italy / Italy-Tuscany PDF
Netherlands PDF
Austria PDF
Poland PDF
Portugal PDF (only characterisations of the institutions)
Sweden PDF
Switzerland PDF (Country study in German)
Slovenia PDF (only characterisations of the institutions)
Czech Republic PDF (only characterisations of the institutions)
European Union PDF (Country study in German)

The country reports include a short country profile (in German) an expert country report (in English, for 11 countries) and a compilation of detailed characterisations of long-term and cross-cutting institutions within the country (in English). The collected country reports (450 pages) with corresponding registers constitute a kind of handbook.

The Main Report
The main report (German) includes an introduction, the description of the methodological approach of the inquiry, a comparative overview concerning the institutions and the political contexts, conclusions and recommendations, and a complete reference list.

List of institutions/persons
This list includes all institutions and persons that were subject to our inquiry. It provides contact persons as well as addresses, telephone, e-mail.

Questionnaire for relevant institutions, methods and procedures (DOC)

Database
The information gathered via questionnaires were entered automatically into a database. At the end of the project this database contains a large collection of detailed characterisations of long-term and cross-cutting institutions throughout Europe. By now it includes 112 institutions in 16 European countries.

Further Development – GIPPOS

A very positive feedback regarding the results of this project showed that apparently such broad information concerning these issues is lacking. It emerged that the database – up to now an internal outcome of this project – would be a very practical tool for institutions and researchers working in these fields.

The EURES Institute therefore decided to further develop the database. Under the acronym GIPPOS EURES is planning to deepen the descriptions and considerably broaden the scope of the database and make it publicly available on the internet. Such an enlarged database would provide detailed and updated information concerning european, national and regional, public and private institutions and organisations in the field of long-term and cross-cutting issues.

However, the set up of GIPPOS would require an additional source of funding. Therefore we are intensely looking for funds or for partners who could imagine to support such a tool. EURES has already elaborated the basic design of such a database and outlined the ideas in a project proposal. If you are interested in GIPPOS, do not hesitate to contact us. We would be happy to send you the GIPPOS proposal.