Kušćević on Decentralization: It Is Not the State’s Job to Work, but to Normatively Regulate Processes

Minister of Administration Lovro Kušćević stated on Tuesday from Plitvice, where he is participating in the assembly of the Association of Municipalities, that he strongly advocates for decentralization and subsidiarity processes, emphasizing that it is the state’s role to normatively regulate and supervise these processes, but that the tasks related to these processes are carried out by counties, cities, and municipalities.

“It is not the state’s job to work, but to normatively regulate processes,” the minister told the gathered local leaders and added that processes need to be decentralized as much as possible so that services are more accessible to citizens, his office, the village, and the county. He cited the Law on Maritime Property, which is in development, claiming that it will significantly accelerate the issuance of concessions through a new method of determining the boundaries of maritime property.

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Kušćević identified the introduction of quality into public administration as a prerequisite for successful decentralization, marking digitalization as its foundation, a process in which approximately 520 million kuna will be invested, along with an additional 53 million kuna for two projects that will introduce a competency framework.

“Digitalization is necessary for transparency, speed, uniformity, legal certainty, and the Ministry of Administration will soon announce a public tender for the selection of an institute or faculty that will determine where public administration processes are duplicated or hindered, where they are effective, and then we will be able to determine which tasks will be performed by counties or the state and state administration offices, and which by municipalities and cities,” he said.

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Lika-Senj County Prefect and envoy of the President of the Republic Darko Milinović supported the words of the president of the Association of Municipalities Martin Barićević that true decentralization and contribution to development would exist if local self-government units could manage their forests and other natural resources. For example, local self-government would have around 60 million kuna annually from the income of the Plitvice Lakes National Park, and then, he asserted, “there would certainly be no problems.”

Milinović argued the necessity of true decentralization with the fact that Lika-Senj County has 200,000 square kilometers and 52,000 inhabitants, which means only 10 inhabitants per square kilometer, emphasizing that “reduced obligations should be accompanied by reduced financial resources.”

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State Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Energy Mile Horvat called on the gathered municipal mayors to apply for current tenders for waste management with more separation of useful fractions, so that waste can be “halved” at the doorstep and a circular economy with raw material recycling can be established as soon as possible.

The president of the Association of Municipalities Barićević stated that Croatia needs to be changed in a creative way, whereby the state should more strongly utilize the potential of directly elected municipal mayors. In this way, he says, the overly slow and demotivating processes of issuing building permits would be accelerated, and natural resources such as forests, quarries, or gas would be managed more adequately.

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In Croatia, 23 mayors won their seventh consecutive term last year, and today the Association of Municipalities awarded them certificates for their special contribution to promoting democracy, the economy, and the welfare of the Republic of Croatia through local self-government.