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Creating a Regional Policy Network from Tabula Rasa in Bulgaria: the Beginning

Antoinette Primatarova and

Georgy Ganev, CLS

SOCCOH Final Conference

Brussels, 2008-01-11

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Brief Outline

  • Bulgarian regional policy overview
    • A short history
    • Present policy-making structure
    • The 2007-2013 programming phase in the selected region in practice

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  • Profile of the Region

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  • Social Network Analysis of the region
    • Quantitative results of four aspects of the network:
      • The basic network of reported contacts
      • The network of contacts related to EU funding
      • The network of reported informal relationships
      • The network of influence attribution
    • Qualitative analysis. Evaluation of the learning/administrative capacity of the institutional infrastructure

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  • Conclusions – EU and Bulgarian regional policies

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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Bulgarian regional policy: a short history

  • 1959-1987: stable districts around District Communist Party Secretaries
    • Today’s NUTS3 districts are exactly the same
  • 1987-1998: redefinition and counter-redefinition
    • Political changes deemphasize districts, legitimize municipalities; de facto no regions
  • State of affairs at the end of 20th century: Tabula Rasa
    • No regions
    • No regional policies
    • No regional policy-making traditions, procedures, bodies, powers.
  • The 21st century:
    • Regions reintroduced because of EU, and for no other reason
    • Initially regions have no personnel, no budgets, no powers
    • So irrelevant, nobody noticed the drastic 2006 changes

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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Regional Policymaking Structure in Bulgaria

  • Financial Centralization
    • Constitutional amendment for fiscal decentralization 2007 – further legislation pending
  • Except at the center, administrative capacity to make and implement policy is limited at all levels
    • 265 municipalities – self-government, with limited discretion, competencies and resource base
    • 28 districts – de-concentrated administrations of the central government; no elective bodies; governors appointed by government
    • 6 NUTS II level regions – planning regions (established in 2000; revised in 2006); no own administration; no own resources; consultative bodies acting on initiative of the central government

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SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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The 2007-2013 programming phase in the selected region in practice

  • The envisaged role of the Region, esp. the Regional Development Council, is rich
    • Yet, under the supervision of the Ministry (Regional Development and Management Systems Directorate) and the Council of Ministers
  • The partnership principle is well designed at all three sub-national levels: municipal, district, and regional
  • The RDC has only recently been formed
  • In practice, the basic programming documents for 2007-2013 (NSRF and OPRD):
    • were only marginally based on the regional strategy and plans
    • were centrally prepared in the Ministry, so
    • de facto, the input of the regional policy network was very limited

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SOCCOH 3rd Project Workshop Prague, 2007-06-22

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Profile of the South Central Region

  • Geography and society:
    • Relatively large population, socially diverse, geographically diverse, border with Greece and Turkey
  • Economy
    • Second biggest in Bulgaria, among the poorest, but also among the fastest catching-up, highest share of industry (30 %) in the country, average but unevenly distributed unemployment
  • Politics
    • No regional self-government and politics
    • So, all politics come from the local or national level
  • Major developmental challenges besides catching-up
    • Integration of minorities, esp. Roma
    • Policies towards remote communities
    • Environmental standards, esp. given high share of polluting industry
    • Infrastructure, esp. for transit

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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SNA results – major actors

  • Survey – 44 surveys, of which 35 face-to-face interviews
  • Actors
    • Central government:
      • Parliamentary committee
      • Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works
      • Managing Authority
      • Ministry of Finance
      • Line ministries
    • Regional actors
      • Regional unit of managing authority
      • Regional development council
      • District governors
      • District development councils
    • Local actors
      • Mayors – of district centers and of other municipalities
      • Municipal councils – of district centers and of other municipalities
    • Civil society actors
      • Trade unions
      • Business and employer organizations
      • Non-government organizations

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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SNA quantitative result – basic network

  • Density
    • Binary edges – 0.87
    • Valued edges – 1.45
  • Centrality
    • In-degree – 17 %
    • Out-degree – 23 %
    • Betweenness – 0.9 %
    • In-closeness – 23 %
    • Out-closeness – 24 %

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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SNA quantitative result – basic network structural equivalence

  • Structural equivalence with CONCOR
    • 4 second level categories, 7 third level groupings
    • Civil society vs. the rest, trade unions aloof
    • District centers group
    • Ministerial group with small municipality connections

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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SNA quantitative result – EU-funding network

  • Density: 0.12
  • Centrality
    • Degree – 70 %
    • Betweenness – 16 %
  • Central actors
    • MRDPW
    • Other municipal councils (?)

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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SNA quantitative result – informal network

  • Density: 0.19
  • Centrality
    • Degree – 52 %
    • Betweenness – 15 %
  • Central actors
    • District governors
    • District dev councils
    • RDC
    • Mininstry of Finance

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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SNA quantitative result – influence attribution network

  • Density: 0.30
  • Centrality
    • Degree – 51 %
    • Betweenness – 28 %
  • Central actors
    • MRDPW
    • Ministry of Finance
    • Line ministries
    • Trade unions (?)

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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SNA qualitative results – institutional learning capacity

  • Dialogue and negotiation
    • the major points of negotiation are the RDC and the Regional Unit.
    • Both underdeveloped, but with prospects (“We are all learning”)
  • Adaptation
    • Informal links will develop, uninhibited by old ones
    • Pressure from decentralization and separation of regional operating programs
  • PPPs – it is still civil society vs. the rest. So far lipservice only
  • Common understanding of major issues
    • Laundry lists vs. strategic priorities and programming
    • Timing problems this time around recognized
    • Willingness for better performance clearly present
  • Policy adaptation
    • Very positive attitude – “this is the first time, we will be more precise next time”
    • All actors agree the policy-making process should get closer to the regions
    • Coordination of separate regional operating programs recognized as a problem

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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SNA qualitative results – types of networks and centralization

  • Types of institutional networks
    • By design the policy-making network is still developing, and potentially should become very dense and not very centralized
    • In reality so far, the network is centralized in terms of informality and especially influence. The programming is recognized as having happened top-down
  • Central – local relations
    • Major development – fiscal decentralization, programming budgeting
    • Major decision ahead – regional layer of elected self-government

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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SNA qualitative results – non-state actors

  • Recognized, but underutilized

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  • Linkages and trust between newly created government actors and non-state actors need time
    • yet both sides confidently claim they will happen

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  • Non-state actors can help regional development policy by linking it to other policies and/or private projects

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  • Neighboring country’s regions are presently unimportant, but are enthusiastically recognized as potentially very useful by border municipalities and districts

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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Conlcusions – �EU and Bulgarian regional policies 1

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  • In the case of Bulgaria the EU is by far the most important factor with respect to regional policy-making structures

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    • No previous such experience in the country
    • EU is sole reason for having regions at all
    • The EU operating program for regional development is the major factor making the regional policy-making process move
    • Most of the future of regional policy-making and its structure is seen through the prism of EU regional development visions and funding

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11

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Conlcusions – �EU and Bulgarian regional policies 2

  • EU is a major agent of change in Bulgarian governance structures

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    • EU is pressing for regionalization in a traditionally centralized country
    • All actors recognize the their contact with the EU as enhancing their understanding of policy-making, programming and project participation
    • EU policies spearhead the creation of regional structures
    • The EU can encourage this process by being less shy about contacting the regions directly rather than through the national government, so

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  • Crucial in this respect is having separate regional operating programs for the 2014-2020 planning period

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  • Crucial national issue to be resolved: regional self-governance

SOCCOH Final Conference Brussels, 2008-01-11