Ministerial Transposition of EU Directives: Can Oversight Improve Performance?

This paper argues that the extent to which national administrations transpose EU directives in a timely fashion may be related to how transposition is coordinated inside national ministries. Focusing on transposition through secondary legislation in Estonia, Poland and Slovenia, the paper finds initial evidence that oversight can contribute to better transposition performance. Ministries with strong internal oversight tend to be better at timely transposition, while ministries with no or weak oversight perform worse. The results tend to hold if one controls for country effects, party preferences and transposition workload.directives; Estonia; political science

Civil Service Reform in Slovakia and Hungary: road to professionalization?

Civil service reforms in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). A comparative analysis of Hungary's and Slovakia's civil service systems, especially from the point of view of politicization and professionalization

Predominance of influenza virus A(H3N2) 3C.2a1b and A(H1N1)pdm09 6B.1A5A genetic subclades in the WHO European Region, 2018–2019

Network authors: Portugal - Raquel Guiomar, Pedro Pechirra, National Influenza Reference Laboratory, Infectious Diseases Department, National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge, Lisbon, PortugalBackground: The 2018/2019 influenza season in the WHO European Region was dominated by influenza A (H1N1)pdm09 and (H3N2) viruses, with very few influenza B viruses detected. Methods: Countries in the European Region reported virus characterization data to The European Surveillance System for weeks 40/2018 to 20/2019. These virus antigenic and genetic characterization and haemagglutinin (HA) sequence data were analysed to describe and assess circulating viruses relative to the 2018/2019 vaccine virus components for the northern hemisphere. Results: Thirty countries reported 4776 viruses characterized genetically and 3311 viruses antigenically. All genetically characterized A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses fell in subclade 6B.1A, of which 90% carried the amino acid substitution S183P in the HA gene. Antigenic data indicated that circulating A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses were similar to the 2018/2019 vaccine virus. Genetic data showed that A(H3N2) viruses mostly fell in clade 3C.2a (75%) and 90% of which were subclade 3C.2a1b. A lower proportion fell in clade 3C.3a (23%) and were antigenically distinct from the vaccine virus. All B/Victoria viruses belonged to clade 1A; 30% carried a double amino acid deletion in HA and were genetically and antigenically similar to the vaccine virus component, while 55% carried a triple amino acid deletion or no deletion in HA; these were antigenically distinct from each other and from the vaccine component. All B/Yamagata viruses belonged to clade 3 and were antigenically similar to the virus component in the quadrivalent vaccine for 2018/2019. Conclusions: A simultaneous circulation of genetically and antigenically diverse A(H3N2) and B/Victoria viruses was observed and represented a challenge to vaccine strain selection.Highlights: Co-circulation of different clades/subclades of influenza A viruses in 2018/2019 in the Region; Most circulating A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses (6B.1A) carried S183P in hemagglutinin; Genetically heterogeneous A(H3N2) viruses, with co-circulation of clades 3C.2a and 3C.3a; Antigenically distinct A(H3N2) clade 3C.3a viruses were increasingly detected until 02/2019 and then decreased; Co-circulation of genetically and antigenically diverse A(H3N2) strains challenges vaccine strain selection.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio