Particularities of Local and Regional Self-Government: On 56,594 Square Kilometers, There Are Even 576 Units

For years, there have been disputes about Croatian local and regional self-government, its size, role, purpose, and whether it actually hinders or does not hinder the development of Croatia, whether it needs reform and what kind. Indeed, at first glance, the numbers reveal everything. In the Republic of Croatia, there are as many as 555 units of local self-government, of which there are 428 municipalities, 127 cities, and 20 units of regional (county) self-government. The City of Zagreb, as the capital of the Republic of Croatia, has a special status as a city and a county, so in our small country, there are a total of 576 units of local and regional (county) self-government.

Salaries Instead of Infrastructure

And how this looks in practice is best seen in the example of one island, in this case, Brač, where there are as many as seven municipalities and one city. This implies that there are seven mayors and probably deputies on Brač, as well as one mayor (in this case, a female mayor) and probably a deputy, along with a considerable number of administrative staff who support and operate this local government machinery. The average municipality in Croatia has about six employees, including political officials (mayor and deputies), while a city has on average almost eight times more, with as many as 46 employees in the city administration. There is no such data for counties. Salaries must be provided for all of them, probably along with a few representative services, which for an island like Brač is probably not such a problem since it has income from tourism, so the island is somewhat developing.

However, the problem lies with small municipalities, far from the hustle and bustle of tourists, business zones, office skyscrapers, and development potentials, where the little money available, mostly supported by the state budget, is spent on the salaries of those mayors and deputies, leaving insufficient funds for sidewalks, public lighting, community centers, local clinics, grass mowing, subsidized public transport, let alone for the development of any infrastructure that might, God forbid, lead to some concrete investments. The only private investments that persist in such municipalities are shops with a wooden bench at the entrance where locals discuss political and sports topics over a bottle of beer.

What Are Whose Duties and Obligations

Those municipalities that are lucky enough to elect someone who can and wants to work during elections are quickly noticed by the media, including Lider, and are recognized for their work in articles stating that something good is happening in that municipality or city and how trends are changing for the better. The sad thing is that there are too few of them, especially in underdeveloped areas of the country. On the other hand, there are municipalities that literally drown in money, whether from tourism or economic activities, which can afford investments in communal services that promote waste sorting, invest in smart public lighting, internet, learn how to apply for EU funds, and draw funds for various interesting projects, from agglomerations to programs for social inclusion of the population, through new tourist projects that will ultimately bring them even greater, mostly financial benefits.

Indeed, there are such municipalities whose biggest concern is how and where to spend money, so they order the most modern trash bins with sensors and cameras or vending machines with plastic flowers and candles for the local cemetery through public tenders. It is hard to comprehend when you come from a municipality where no one mows the children’s playground and where a doctor comes once a week for two hours. And vice versa.

Considering that there is no civic education in Croatia, and politics does not strive to expose or teach the public what the duties and obligations of municipalities, cities, and counties are, voters essentially have no idea what local authorities are responsible for. For example, municipalities are responsible for the arrangement of settlements and housing, spatial and urban planning, communal economy, care for children, social welfare, primary health care, education and primary schooling, culture and sports, consumer protection, protection and improvement of the natural environment, and fire and civil protection. Counties are responsible for education, health care, spatial and urban planning, economic development, transport and transport infrastructure, maintenance of public roads, planning and development of networks of educational, health, social, and cultural institutions, and finally for issuing building and location permits, as well as for implementing spatial planning documents.

Both local and regional self-government have a common role, which is the implementation of development projects and participation in the implementation of the EU cohesion policy, from which, nowadays, the largest part of social and economic development projects of small and large spatial units is financed on the European continent. As a rule, local schools are financed by the state, debts to county hospitals are repaid by the state, and so on.

Below Average

The light at the end of the tunnel has come from the EU, more precisely and specifically from EU funds. As noted by Vedran Đulabić, an associate professor at the Department of Administrative Science at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, in his work titled ‘Local and Regional Self-Government and the Use of Funds from the European Union’, units of local and regional self-government appear in several important roles when it comes to using funds from EU funds.

– They appear either as holders of local and regional development or as partners with the central government in shaping policy towards EU institutions and using funds from EU funds or as end users of funds from ESI funds – emphasizes Đulabić and states that the usability of funds most often and almost solely depends on the capacities of a particular local self-government.

The better the self-government has people with developed competencies, the more funds it draws. And that is all the math. The European Commission sees this very well. Its latest report on Croatia states that we are below the EU average in terms of public administration efficiency.

‘Insufficient capacity for the development and implementation of policies and projects affects efficiency and speed, which became evident during the crisis in drawing funds from structural and investment funds, which represent a great opportunity for Croatia to mitigate the consequences of the crisis and support economic recovery. The introduction of a new strategic planning system and the announced national development strategy are not progressing. Moreover, public administration is territorially very fragmented, and at the local level, resources are not aligned with responsibilities. This contributes to uneven quality of public services in the country and rising administrative costs,’ states the recommendations of the European Commission.

We can change this, shift trends, we just need to be aware of our responsibility at the polls, as well as the responsibility of those whose names we circle.

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