Open Access

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EU administrative law scholarship and practice remain confused about the reach and interrelation of arts 290 and 291 TFEU, which created the categories of delegated and implementing Commission acts. The introduction of these two different instruments of executive rule-making by the Lisbon Treaty has prompted attempts in delineating them, based on constitutional theories of separation of powers or functional differentiation. These attempts have failed to a large extent, all the more since the CJEU’s relevant case law has not been helpful in constructing a proper distinction. Today, recourse to arts 290 and 291 TFEU by the legislator takes place in the tension created between the fact that the Treaties, informed by an abstract constitutional distinction between legislation and execution, appear to have created categorically different acts, and the fact that delegated and implementing rule-making procedures in practice have become increasingly similar to each other. In simplified terms, the problem is that delegated and implementing acts appear – in terms of their foundation in primary law – as fundamentally different acts that are, however, adopted in practice through similar procedures, at the same time as their content and legal effects are indistinguishable in many or even in most cases. Yet, if we accept that the creation of two forms of Commission acts was prompted by some form of legal necessity or legitimate political will, then understanding the difference between delegating and implementing acts remains paramount.

In recent years, partner countries of German development cooperation have voiced a growing interest in German public administration education. Against this background, we provide a systematic assessment of the system of public administration education – covering the vocational education and training (VET) program for the intermediate civil service, and the (dual) study program for the higher intermediate civil service. We identify elements of success within the German system and evaluate their relevance for an idea transfer to partner countries. Thereby, we identify four promising elements for partner countries: recruitment, „dualizing“ civil service training, institutionalizing fitness for transformation, and introducing a modularized concept. For each element we specify components and describe their potential benefits, basic conditions, and core ideas for exporting the element.

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