Formation of regional level of self-government in the process of transformation in Slovakia

Povzetek

In Slovakia the reform of local government put into practise immediately after the revolution
and since 1990 in every town and village citizens could freely elected municipal authorities..
The regional self-government has emerged under pressure from the European Union
substantially later, up to 1. January 2002. EU supports regionalization as well as provides
funds for the development of the regions. During the preparation of the legislation were
discussed about the size and number of regions. After tumultuous negotiations finally there
were created 8 self-government regions, co called higher territorial units (vyššie územné celky
- VÚC) with their residence on the territory of which lives around 800 000 citizens; they
were elected chairmen and members of the regional parliaments. Gradually realised
redistribution of competencies between the State, the regional authorities and the local
government, it was developed methods of financing of the regions by state. Responsibilities
have been distributed between the Central, regional and local administration across all spheres
of social life, for example education, health, communication, etc. The existence of the 8
counties, however, didn't prove useful, so evidenced by the lack of interest of citizens, the
small turnout of voters in elections to the regional government, as well as the fact that the
differences between the most developed and least developed regions of Slovakia did not get
diminished. Part of the authors justify the lack of interest of citizens that the VÚC did not
emerged on the territory of the natural regions and therefore they proposed to increase the
number of the VÚC to 12 or even 16 subjects. The second part of the theorists argues that
there is a lot districts and we should go back to the model of 3 districts.
Therefore, the starting point would be to reduce the number of regional authorities and review
their competence in connection with the local government. The model of transversal division
of competences has not proved. Another problem lies in the fact that the number of local
authorities has not changed, unable to connect the villages to the larger units, in order to more
effectively use their options, as we see in the Nordic countries.