This is not the Netherlands to predict the weaknesses of the administration

The other day I spoke with a cousin who is working temporarily (read: forever) abroad, specifically in the Netherlands. He is building a weekend house by the sea, in Dalmatia. He is still waiting for some permits from the local administration and complains to me how slowly everything is going. I advise him like some sage not to worry, that it is simply like that and that there is nothing he can do, but from my wise and original advice, his blood pressure only rises, so he asks me in a slightly elevated, 'sweet' tone – which made me move the phone a bit away from my ear – 'How can it be in the Netherlands, what are you trying to pull here?!'

He got angry at me as if I were to blame for the slowness of the administrative apparatus, but since we are close relatives, I did not get angry at him, and he quickly calmed down too. The path to a tolerant dialogue was unblocked, and he started telling me how things are in 'his beautiful country'.

Unlike our Beautiful Homeland, where people wait for permits for months, sometimes even years, in the Netherlands this procedure is much faster – they are obtained in a month or two, in some areas even in less than a month, which is truly science fiction for us. What would our people give to have such a local administration as the Dutch do and all those who have realized that real life is in that country, like my cousin?

However, my dear readers, do not think that everything is wonderful there either. It is about administration, have you forgotten? It can also happen there that someone 'falls asleep' on the job and forgets to resolve a case. Moreover, my cousin says there are hassles like missing this or that paper, that the procedure was not followed. So, even there, administrators can get on the nerves of local investors (citizens and companies), but still much less than here in the Balkans. So if they do hassle, people bring the necessary papers and the matter is generally resolved.

But others do not suffer due to negligence

But, as I mentioned, there are also such situations where an administrative worker of the local government 'falls asleep' on the job and a physical person or company waits and waits… Ha, and the Dutch are people of flesh and blood, and who knows, maybe some of our Balkan people got a job in local government and brought our habits with them. In any case, the writers of the regulations there knew that the administration has weaknesses, they anticipated such possibilities, so they found the best possible solution: if someone, for example, submits a request for a building permit, and the relevant local authority does not make a decision (positive or negative) within three months, it will be considered that the building permit has been issued (the request resolved positively) and the physical person or company can start building the object.

This is known as the so-called silence of the administration, which is treated in this way in the Netherlands. Thus, Dutch local administrations will address the issue of their administrative non-performance and make decisions about the consequences for individuals who operate as they do. But, what is most important, while the process of determining the fault of the administrative worker is underway, physical persons and companies that have submitted requests for permits do not suffer. In other words, this prevents the administration from abusing citizens and companies in the Netherlands.

We could all nicely copy this

Now, I nicely ask our lawmakers, subordinate and other regulations: why don’t we just copy all this from the Dutch since they have thought it out so nicely, so we don’t have to rack our brains over such difficult topics? Imagine if in Croatia we had a regulation that allows us to obtain a building permit if the administration is silent about the submitted request for three months. Or at least six months, because in the Netherlands everything is organized. For example, land registries are clearer than ours, and so on. But let those connected with such businesses at least think a little and discuss why such a thing should not be introduced here. It would make things much easier for us, and for me in recent days, so that my cousin would not yell at me due to the silence of the Croatian administration.

POST SCRIPTUM

Another reason why it would be good to introduce the institute of administrative silence, whose consequence would be the automatic acceptance of requests for building (or some other) permits, is that we would significantly curb corruption. It is a public secret that there are those in local administration who abuse their position by extorting physical or legal persons with the speed of issuing permits in order to extort bribes. Of course, we would not eradicate the problem of corruption in this way, but we would still curb it with such a measure. The question is, however, when the authorities would adopt such legal provisions, whether part of the administration (there are certainly honest people in it) would rise up on their hind legs inventing reasons why such a thing cannot be introduced here.