GOLD Report I - UCLG

EUROPE136United Cities and Local GovernmentsTerritorial reform through cooperationIn France, a country of 36,000 municipalities, cooperation has long been themeans to run the public services that single municipalities on their own cannotprovide. But since the introduction of a law in 1999, supported by a strong commitmentfrom the central government and financial incentives, inter-municipalpublic corporations with own tax powers have developed rapidly. These intermunicipalcorporations are vested by the law with various strategic functions (e.g.planning, economic development, major capital investments etc.) and have owntax powers independent of those of member municipalities. At the beginning of2007, 33,414 municipalities and 54.2 million people had been reorganized under2,588 intercommunalités (inter-municipalities), as they have been called.In Hungary, a law from November 2004 provided for the development of intermunicipalcooperation within 166 micro-regions in order to meet local developmentobjectives, the main one of which was to ensure that the management ofpublic schools would be taken on by these inter-municipal corporations. At thebeginning of 2006, such consortia had been set up in 118 micro-regions, and in 90of these, all municipalities have joined the consortium.This was also the approach followed by Italy, with its unions of municipalities, andin Spain, with the bill on local government reform following the 2005 White Paper,which aims at encouraging inter-municipal cooperation 9 .However, the French intercommunalités will keep the distinction of having theirown tax-levying powers and a wide range of functions provided for by law.9. Whitebook for thereform of LocalGovernments,Madrid, Ministryfor PublicAdministration.hrined in the Constitution by amendment(new article 114) in 2001. Only three perimetershave been drawn up (Bologna, Genoa andVenice), but these only constitute rather looseframeworks for voluntary cooperation. Insome regions, including Campania and Piedmont,the provinces of the regional capitalswould like to turn themselves into Città Metropolitana,but it seems uncertain that this willactually happen. Consequences on localdemocracy are not one-sided; they depend onthe selected institutional setting.In the United Kingdom, first- and second-tierreforms are linked. The White Paper publishedin October 2006 (Strong and ProsperousCommunities, Cm 6939) provides for a furtherround of unitary council formation inthose regions where there is still a two-tiersystem. The government announced on the25th July 2007 the formation of nine newunitary councils, and the Law of 30th October2007 created the legal conditions for therealization and the continuation of the process(Local Government and Public Involvementin Health Act 2007, c.28).II.3. Intermediate levelsIt is at the intermediate level that the mostimportant changes in the territorial organizationof states have taken place over thepast two or three decades. Moreover, thesechanges have been both institutional andfunctional (Marcou: 2000 and 2002).Historically, the intermediate level is closelylinked to the creation and augmentationof the state. More specifically, it isessential for what has been called “terri-