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22nd Session of the Congress of Local and regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

– Sitting of the Chamber of Regions

Strasbourg, 21 March 2012

Speech of Stane VLAJ, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Public Administration and European Studies of the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)

« Regionalisation process in Slovenia »

The local self-government system in the Republic of Slovenia

When we discuss the issues concerning the actual problems of the regionalisation process in Slovenia we have to take into account the whole system of local self-government in the Republic of Slovenia as the framework for this discussion.

The reform of local self-government in Slovenia began with the adoption of the Constitution of a new and independent country, which quarantees local self-government in the Republic of Slovenia. Local self-government system has been in force since January 1995. According to the Constitution, citizens exercise local self-government by means of municipalities and other local government organisations, i.e. (future) regions.

The state of local and regional democracy in Slovenia has been the subject of a Congress monitoring report in 2001. The second monitoring the state of local and regional self-government in Slovenia has been done in 2011.

Municipalities

The basic self-governing local communities are the municipalities. The municipalities are established and their territory is determined by statute. Municipalities may set up communities or join together to regulate and perform functions of common interest, as established by law.

Narrower sections of the municipality may be established within municipalities (local, village or quarter communities). If a municipality has subdivisions (village or city (town) district communities) municipal statutes may transfer to those subdivisions the implementation of tasks such as local public services, maintenance of local roads and other public spaces, management of property and the promotion of cultural and other social services.

 

Within 211 municipalities there are 11 urban municipalities with the same legal status as others. In accordance with the Constitution and within their competence, urban municipalities may also exercise  tasks under state competence stipulated by law, which refer to the development of the city.

The competences of municipalities are regulated by the Constitution, the Law on Local Self-Government, acts governing the tasks of public administration in individual areas of social relationships and autonomous local regulations.

The basic mission of a municipality is to take care of municipal affairs within the framework of the law, which includes primary education (school buildings and facilities), social welfare (child care, elderly care and social assistance), health (primary healthcare and pharmacies), social housing, leisure (museums, libraries, theaters, sport facilities, leisure centres) and local public utilities and networks (waste and water management, urban city transport, local road network, urban heating, etc.). The Central government can delegate supplementary responsibilities to municipalities if it provides them with the corresponding financial means.

The Slovene Constitution requires the right of local communities to sufficient financial sources of their own, which the local communities then use at their discretion. Local authorities must have a high degree of autonomy regarding their own jurisdiction, the methods and means for realizing these obligations and the necessary sources for fulfilling them. Financial autonomy also means that local authorities have a minimum of collected taxes on their territory, and it requires satisfactory management of local public services that serve the common good.

Regions – the second level of a local self-government system in Slovenia

The adopted (2006) Constitutional amendments in the area of local self-government will enable Slovenia to get a two-level self-government - after years of professional and political debates -, the type of which already strongly prevails in most  European countries. The current adopted solution resolves the fundamental errors of the system that we have had until now, but has some constitutional deficiencies – from the point of view of systematics, constitutional material and content.  Regions as a mandatory second level local self-government will prove to be very important for the decentralisation of Slovenia and subsequently for the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity as a fundamental principle for setting-up relationships between the state government and sub-state levels of government.

The fundamental goal of the establishment of regions in Slovenia is efficient management (good governance) with the aim to ensure quality services for the local and regional population. 

The constitutional amendments will not yet lead to the optimally established and functional regions. The constitutional provisions are the foundation for the formulation of acts, which will enable decentralisation of state functions and the delegation of a considerable part of public matters from state to regional level. Along with the establishment of regions, the available property in exercising their competence and a suitable system of financing their tasks will have to be clearly specified.

From a systemic point of view, the regions will as a new territorial administrative structure introduce numerous changes into other parts of the social system - legal order or legislation, public finance, state government, position of the municipalities, areas of work of individual ministries, cross-border cooperation of local communities, international relations as well as the position of citizens themselves.

The Constitution defines two-tier local self-government, which means that regions should be established as wider self-governing local communities at the level between the state and the municipalities.

The responsibilities of the new regions will include local issues of wider importance and tasks of regional importance (economic development, regional public transports, establishment and maintenance of institutions such as regional hospitals and education, cultural and social institutions, etc.) as well as delegated tasks, mainly state administrative tasks. They will be responsible for the management of EU structural funds, enabling a more efficient acquisition and use of these funds. 

Studies have shown that the optimal selection contains six to eight regions. The project expert group most often mentioned the division of Slovenia into eight regions as the most appropriate solution in several aspects.

Conclusions

         

Unfortunately the new coalition contract canceled the establishment of regions. This document also treated municipalities from the centralistic point of view. The establishment of the regions  is postponed. Pessimistic variant is that the regions couldn't be established in the current mandate period (2012-2015).

Regions as an obligatory second level of self-government will be of major importance for the decentralisation of Slovenia and consequently for the realisation of the principle of subsidiarity as the fundamental principle of arrangement of relations between the State and subnational government levels. Unfortunately the new coalition contract of five political parties doesn׳t have any statement concerning the regions. In absence of regions Slovenia will remain as one of the most centralised countries in Europe.

The Republic of Slovenia doesn´t have an elaborated strategy and doctrine (model) of local and regional self-government system which Slovenia wants to realise in practice. Local self-government in Slovenia is under strong auspices of the state in terms of content and finance.

One of the reasons for the crisis in Slovene local government is the large number of inefficient municipalities, which strengthens centralism in the state. That is why we have to determine the point at which the local communities would be economically able to ensure the management of complicated public services. This undoubtedly represents one of the basic challenges for future development of local self-government.

The Congress recommends that Slovenia increase the local authorities’ revenue autonomy, promote mergers of local authorities where appropriate, reach a compromise on the number of regions and launch the process of regionalisation. It also invites the authorities to disseminate the existing good practices concerning the integration of Roma into local communities.