Poland. International Workshop on "Experience on the Local Authorities Borrowing Limits, Definition and Control"

On December 20th and 21st 2008 at the Palac Prymasowski in Warsaw, the International Workshop on “International Experience on the Local Authorities Borrowing Limits, Definition and Control” was held under the Twinning Project “Local Government Budget Management System”. The event was organized by the project RTA, Mr Pasquale Russiello in close collaboration with Fabrizio Mocavini from the Italian Ministry of the Economy and Finance in Rome.
The speakers who took the floor during the two workshop days come from six different European countries: Bulgaria, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Italy and Poland.
The workshop intended to compare the financial management systems in the afore-mentioned countries. In particular, the topic regarding the project benchmarking was analysed in depth for the purpose of verifying the efficacy of the monitoring and central control tools which have been applied to local entities. The speakers were requested to outline the current regulatory framework, its evolution and the analysis of the results under the general organization of the economic system in the various countries.
The first day opened with the presentation of the Polish system by Ms Marianna Borowska from the Ministry of Finance who explained the organization levels of the Public Administration in Poland and  emphasized the main flows of public funds and the methods for use by municipalities, provinces and regions.
Following, Fabrizio Mocavini, Roberto Gargiulo and Giuseppe Florio from the Italian Ministry of the Economy and Finance, Luca Mazzara for CSI Piemonte, Jose Maria Pinero Campos from the Spanish Ministry of Finance, and Herman Crespin from Sweden, held a speech.
The addresses of the Italian speakers who had already taken part in the project activities and had presented the Italian system, were introduced in order to answer specific questions by the Polish beneficiaries about local entities funding system .
Jose Maria Pinero Сampos concentrated on the systems of short and long-term loans and borrowing control in Spain.
On the second day, Lyudmila Bozhanova and Anna Leal - from Bulgaria and Poland respectively - opened the works. Ms Bozhanova outlined in brief, Bulgarian municipalities and regions with particular attention on the Agreement for decentralization of powers and resources to local entities which was issued in 2002.
After the introduction on the Public Administration system in Portugal, Ms Anna Leal described the legislative system which rules allocation and monitoring of funding to regions and local entities.
The seminar was an interesting opportunity for comparing the financial systems of the various countries and received appreciation  by the Polish counterpart and all the participants.