Title page
Contents
Acknowledgements 4
List of abbreviations and acronyms 6
Executive summary 7
Introduction 10
Background of the study 10
The administrative budget classification 11
Objective and structure of the report 13
Methodological notes 13
1. EU good practice examples 16
1.1. Overview of selected EU Member States 16
1.2. First-level budget organisation in good practice examples 21
2. Practice in the Western Balkans and Moldova 23
2.1. Number and structure of first-level budget organisations 23
2.2. Factors behind the number of FLBOs 27
2.3. Consequences for public financial management 30
2.4. Conclusions 33
3. Directions for reform 34
3.1. Limit the number of first-level budget organisations 34
3.2. Make line ministers accountable for budget management in their sector 36
3.3. Align the public administration and public financial management reforms 37
Annex 1: Number and types of FLBOs in the Western Balkans and Moldova 38
Albania 38
Kosovo 40
Moldova 41
Montenegro 42
North Macedonia 43
Serbia 45
Table 1. Categories of public organisation that have FLBO status in one of the case-study administrations 14
Table 2. Number and types of FLBOs in the analysed EU Member States 22
Table 3. Number and types of FLBOs in Western Balkans and Moldova 24
Table 4. Number of government ministries in 2023 25
Figure 1. Schematic representation of the administrative budget classification 12
Figure 2. FLBOs in the Western Balkans and Moldova compared to the EU good practice average 24