Hungarian and Croatian citizens, enterprises everyday life helped by a European Union project which opening ceremony held on Thursday in Kaposvár.

The INTERREG V-A Hungary-Croatia Cooperation Project 2014-2020 contribute to development of cooperation between Government Office of Somogy County and the public administration bodies of cross-border areas.

The goal is beside the mutual exchange of experiences is to will be the public administration processes more efficient and simpler to both parties. 

The project within the European Union Regional Cooperation Project main beneficiary is the Government Office of Somogy County. Its partners from Croatia are the State Administration Offices of Međimurje County and Osijek-Baranja County. The project supported by from Hungarian side is the Office of Prime Minister and from Croatian side is the Ministry of State Administration. The project’s length is 16 month and in this period working groups will be assess the needs of the clerks and costumers. They will be collect their opinions and summarize the experiences about the public administration system to be made a cooperation framework. 

At the opening ceremony the Assistant Secretary for regional public administration of the Office of Prime Minister Viktoria Zöld-Nagy said between 2010 and 2014 her responsibility was the coordination of cross-border contacts, so she is particularly pleased to participate on this project launching event because this project is originated from that planning period. She emphasized that all of the Government Offices the Government Office of Somogy County initiated first this cooperation which can be useful to Hungarian and Croatian parties as well. In conjunction with the provider state’s philosophy the Hungarian Government’s goal is to the public administration matched with the citizen’s needs and expectations. The Assistant Secretary added the partners having such experiences and views which can help the successful work.

The Croatian secretary of the Ministry of State Administration Darko Nekic at the opening ceremony said about they’re wanted to better understanding the functions of the Hungarian Government Offices because they’re liked to achieve similar designs in Croatia. They can help with the presentation of their e-citizen system. It was initiated in 2014 since then they provided with it 45 services and counting. Thanks to the online system the administration become simpler to the Croatian citizens whom can access to their birth certificate or marriage certificate at home. The Secretary said with this system the goal was to public administration services became more cost efficient, modern and fast with access to documents. Darko Nekic emphasized the Croatian Ministry of State Administration provide any support helping this project became more successful. 

- Hungary closely linked to Croatia in many ways economy and tourism as well especially Somogy County. At the present Somogy County has four Croatian County-twinning but before this project it did not have connection with neither Međimurje County nor Osijek-Baranja County. Thanks to this project now in a new field - the public administration - the partner counties meet and work together - said Zsolt Neszményi in his speech. The Appointee of the Government Office of Somogy County emphasized they can help the Croatian Offices with the experiences of one-window administration in order to citizens administrative cases will be simpler. 

The current Croatian public administration system has initiated in 2001. The county level public administration bodies provided a number of functions including monitoring in the county’s local governments - said at the event the Registrar of Government Office of Čakovec Branimir Posevac. According to him the counties state administrative offices can express their recommendations in conjunction with implementation, for example legislative provisions how can be accomplished in public administration. They can express their experiences to the ministry’s decision makers in order to public administration could be simpler. The Registrar added that understanding the Hungarian one-window administration could be big assistance to the Croatian party because the e-citizen system updated with that could make the public administration more efficient. 

On the project launch event was present the President of the Assembly of Somogy County Norbert Bíró and Appointee of the Registrar of Government Office of Osijek Mario Burek as well.  

Darko Nekic after the event visited the Government Window at the Imre Nagy Square in Kaposvár. The Croatian Secretary of the Ministry of State Administration informed by Assistant Registrar of District Office of Kaposvár of the Government Office of Somogy County Szilvia Boldog-Ellenberger about the work of the Government Window.