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  • 15-02-2021 20:39

EU/Presidency: Public administration must 'encourage networking' - MEP


Lisbon, Feb. 15, 2021 (Lusa) - Portuguese MEP Maria Manuel Leitão Marques said on Monday that the hierarchy of the public administration can only be solved with the creation of "integrated public service projects" and not with major reforms encouraged by the state.

The former minister of the presidency and administrative modernisation, who was speaking at a digital conference on the challenges of the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU), said that one of the "great challenges" facing the public administration today is to "encourage networking rather than hierarchical work".

One of the priorities of the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the EU is precisely the implementation of best digital practices in public administration, particularly with regard to administrative and fiscal simplification and services.

"I do not believe that remote working will solve this problem. On the contrary," Maria Manuel Leitão Marques recalled her experience of managing cross-cutting projects, in which she had to deal with public entities from different ministries that had no proximity that would allow networking.

The MEP said, "sometimes, the great reform of the state, which redesigns everything, has enormous costs and the benefits are not very evident", so the solution lies in changing the "way we work", which should be oriented towards "projects designed for the citizen".

She went on to say that "if we work by projects in order to provide an integrated public service, this will have the upstream beneficial consequence that the administration will have to work together, whether it is part of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of the Economy or any other ministry".

The Socialist MEP also stressed the need for "better connectivity" of the digital infrastructures in Portugal, to allow the Internet "to reach the homes of all children who are at school", for example.

"I'm not saying it is necessary to take 5G everywhere, but it will be necessary to take connectivity in good conditions to almost all the territory," she said, adding that the use of this technology can provide the motto for Portuguese industry to be "competitive".

Marques added that the autonomy strategy that the European Union aspires to is not made "at the expense of centralised European champions in the middle of Europe", but through a "decentralised way, using good connectivity".

She recalled the launch of the EllaLink submarine cable, scheduled for June, under the Portuguese presidency of the European Union, which will link the Portuguese city of Sines to Fortaleza, in Brazil, and will allow "the connection of Europe to the rest of the world".

Marques took part in the digital conference "Challenges of the Portuguese presidency of the European Union", held by the University of Coimbra, which was also attended by European commissioner Elisa Ferreira and the chairman of the board of Lusa news agency, Nicolau Santos.

BYC/ADB // ADB.

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