Executive Summary

In the light of the current fast-changing economic and social context of Europe, in particular after the 2009 Eurozone crisis, a trend of organizational transformation is underway. This crisis has not only affected the EU member states' economic growth, it has also exposed other fundamental problems at both the national and EU level.

Being exposed to their structural weaknesses, numerous European countries started to develop recovery reforms and implement rigorous measures to keep their budgets under control—ultimately aimed at gaining cost savings and strengthening their organizational performance.

Additionally, EU institutions started to face organizational challenges while providing support to the member states with more impacts and cost-saving objectives on their functioning budget. In turn, they responded to the crisis by aligning their strategic objectives to those of the member states in order to effectively deal with the national issues. Putting this in practice, in 2010 the European Commission launched the "Europe 2020 Strategy" 1 for EU institutions—a ten-year job and growth strategy—which contains conditions for smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth. Up to 2020, EU institutions will contribute toward this goal through a number of strategic objectives, which may require budgetary and organizational efforts by EU administrations and staff members.

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