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Decentralisation and Regionalisation of Slovenia – State of Awakening or still a Hibernation?

In Slovenia, there have been long political and expert debates about decentralisation and regionalisation of the country. As one of the smallest as well as one of the most centralised European state, Slovenia has 210 municipalities as the first-tier self-government units. Hitherto, more than fifteen years after establishment of the system of local self-government, no serious steps have been taken in the direction of functional and fiscal decentralization. Slovenia still has no central strategic document that would envisage the future reform of local self-government and decentralisation process in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity. The traditional legalistic approach to public administration reforms, characteristic for most transitional countries, has also prevailed in Slovenia. We may wonder whether political elites at the central and local levels are (finally) ready to reach consensus and cease part of their competences and powers to local government bodies. Although constitutional amendments of 2006 made it possible for the commencement of real decentralisation process and the general attitude towards the need for establishment of provinces (pokrajina) as a second-tier self-government units is a relatively positive one, it remains an open issue with controversial viewpoints as to the purposes of the reform, as some actors, considering the country's small territory and the number of inhabitants, are still doubtful about justifiableness of introducing provinces into the Slovenian administrative-territorial system. Many politicians as well as experts unjustifiably identify the creation of provinces with regionalisation. The institutional exponent and coordinator of a balanced regional development policy in Slovenia as a EU member state would be, if ever established, only mezzo-level government in form of political regions, and in Slovenia there more than two regions could not exist. The paper analyses the current state of Slovenian local self-government that is causing many municipalities to face with numerous problems: fragmented administrativeterritorial organisation, insufficient scope of affairs to promote social and economic development on their area, lack of financial autonomy, weak administrative capacities for carrying out public affairs, negligence of citizens' participation in decision-making on local level, and finally the basic political and expert contoversies regarding the establishment of provinces.

decentralization and regionalisation-Slovenia; local self-government; reform

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