Institutional Change in Practice

Abstract

In 2003, when we had begun working on the National Programme of Development (NPR) 2007-2013, I was wondering what could be done in order to prevent our political successors from wasting, aft er the parliamentary elections of 2005, what we would have achieved by that time. Th e main challenge to deal with was how to take advantage of EU membership and utilise EU structural instruments. It is rational, that a full cycle of development foreseen in such plan is carried out more for than a dozen years or so, that is, at least three to four government terms. I assumed that the most sensible solution would be to prepare a complete NPR and all the documents needed, but without passing them. Instead they were left for our successors for adjustments2. I had thought that if the proceedings were fully transparent and accompanied with broad national debate, involving representatives of the opposition, then our successors would respect the outcome of such a collaboration and further use it. I also assumed that they would only change the details like titles, covers, reorganize something, but apart from that they would accept the Programme simply because they would not be able to develop anything entirely new on time. I was wrong, as it turned out. Almost everything was forsaken just because it was developed by the former, 'not right' government. Even the slightest traces of NPR disappeared from the site of the Ministry of Regional Development.