GOLD Report I - UCLG

131between the design of the executive, theforms of election in use (e.g. increasingpractice of direct election of mayors) and theplace given to citizen participation. Despitethe wide variety of processes and reformsinvolved, a common tendency can be identified:that of seeking to establish a politicalleadership that is clearly accountable to itscitizens. Promoting local executive power, asdistinct from the assembly, is widely regardedas a necessary means for strengtheningpolitical leadership and accountability, evenwhere there is no direct election of a mayor,which is the case in the United Kingdom andthe Netherlands.A presentation of the condition of local democracyin Europe, however generalized,must account for both common tendenciesand the diversity of institutions and practices.The split between shared and distinctelements underlies territorial organization,powers and responsibilities, managementand finance and local democracy.II. Territorial organizationThe municipal level has to be distinguishedfrom the intermediate levels, but we willfocus here on the municipal level, includinginter-municipal institutions. Any comparativepresentation of the territorial structuresof the European states must take intoaccount all the reforms that have beencarried out over the past thirty years, aswell as their many structural offspring.Such a presentation presupposes definingthe different levels of territorial organization.II.1. Definition of jurisdictionsand government levelsTraditional presentations are based on theidea that the local authorities within a stateare usually organized into two levels –alocal council and a higher level covering amore or less vast constituency. Powers andresponsibilities are usually divided betweenthese two levels according to functionalcriteria. (Marcou / Verebelyi: 1993; Norton:1993). Even so, in the following countriescertain councils can take on thepowers and responsibilities of both governmentlevels:• Germany: municipality and district(Kreis), with larger urban municipalitieshaving the status of a district anddistrict-level concomitant powers andresponsibilities. A similar system is nowused in Hungary and Poland;• England: district and county. Before the1972 reforms, certain boroughs had theattributes of a county. Since the reformsof 1986 and 1996, some areashave only a single-tier local authority–the district in metropolitan areas, theunitary council in others;• Belgium, France, Italy and Spain: themunicipality and province, or département.This applied in Belgium, Italy andSpain before regions with constitutionalstatus were set up 3 .This standard depiction more or less leftout countries like Finland, Greece andPortugal, which traditionally had just onelevel of decentralization. Nor do thesestandard criteria take into account differencesin size that can affect meaning at ahigher level 4 . The traditional presentationalso failed to account for administrativedivisions existing exclusively to meet theneeds of the central government, andexcluded federal entities like those in Austriaand Germany. Such shortcomings aside,the traditional form of presentationdid offer a certain conceptual unity for theconcept of local government based on oneor two levels.These days, the picture is far more complicated.For one thing, regions havebeen created in several countries butaccording to very different concepts that,moreover, have changed over time. Belgiumbecame a federal state; in Italy andSpain, the development of regional autonomiesput an end to the unitary state.3. In Italy, the regionswith ordinary statuswere not set up until1970, although theywere provided forunder the 1947Constitution.4. For example, thedifference betweenthe German Kreis,considered to beboth a single localauthority and aconsortia ofmunicipalities, andthe British county,covering a muchlargeradministrativedivision – the usualtranslation of Kreiswith county blurredthis significantdifference.