Czech Republic Unitary state

Reforms

In order to deal with the high number of municipalities and to improve public administration efficiency, preparations for a territorial reform have been underway in the Czech Republic since 2011.

Public administration reforms drafted by the government in 2011–2012 have not been approved. Early parliamentary elections are to be held in October 2013 and the reforms left on stand-by are expected to be brought forward by the new government. The local government association strongly disagreed with the draft proposals and aims to enter into further negotiations with the new government on a new shape of the reforms.

The reform, which should enter into force partially in 2014 and entirely in 2016, calls for the reconcentration of certain delegated competences in favour of designated municipalities, of which there are 205 in the country out of a total of 6 249. These municipalities will be the sole contacts for the handling of competences relating to the environment, civil status, construction and school reforms. Regular municipalities will only be responsible for competences that are strictly local.

At the same time, new financing methods are being considered, mainly to take new municipal competences into account. These reforms will also have an impact on the organisation of certain municipal services, which will be merged together with those of several other municipalities. Programmes to improve public administration efficiency, led by these new larger municipalities, have also been set up.

The objective of these drafts is to improve efficiency of local public administration and to cut costs. Czech municipalities, deemed to be too many in number, have also been urged to form inter-municipal associations, or even to merge together to be better positioned to safeguard all their competences. At any rate, there is still no project at national level intended to reduce the number of municipalities.

Local self-government in the Czech Republic:

Even though the European Charter of Local Self-Government seems to be respected, the reforms ensuing from the crisis, along with the austerity measures, may negatively impact the smallest municipalities. Local public services run the risk of becoming too distant from the citizens, which may raise a number of problems, particularly in the country’s rural zones.