Inter-Communal Cooperation and Regional Development: The Case of Romania

Abstract

abstract. Romania's local administrative-territorial organisation shows a high degree of fragmentation. The situation tends to worsen as some villages break away from the parent communes and form new administrative-territorial structures. Since their area is fairly small and adequate financial resources to sustain some coherent, long-term development programmes are missing, a solution would be for them to associate freely into inter-communal cooperation structures, which is a basic prerequisite for attracting European structural funds. Such a type of cooperation practice was experienced in this country at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, inter-communal cooperation could be achieved in two ways: by an association of local communities patterned on historical 'lands' (after the French model) and by the establishment of a town, of the metropolitan type, to polarise cooperation structures.

From Single-Use Community Facilities Support to Integrated Sustainable Development: The Aims of Inter-Municipal Cooperation in Poland, 1990–2018

“…These findings are similar to those of LAGs studies in EU post-socialist member states [12,114]. The mono-sectoral inter-municipal cooperation in this region are most often focused on the development and modernization of infrastructure necessary for directly carrying out their tasks, for instance in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Romania [62,72,115]. However, according to Potkański [74], such an approach is short-sighted because, despite improving the quality of infrastructure and the momentary satisfaction of voters, it does not ensure long-term economic development, creating jobs or income sources for the local population.…”

“…However, if local self-governments are focused on activities inside their territory, why should they cooperate? There are two main reasons; the need to deal with problems that go beyond the boundaries of the territorial unit and the opportunity to obtain additional benefits resulting from group work [61][62][63]. Collaboration can facilitate economies of scale, the attainment of "critical mass" in specialised activities, synergy, policy learning and better quality of municipal services [64][65][66].…”

Assessing environmental fragility in a mining areafor specific spatial planning purposes

“…A Romanian law enacted by the National Parliament in 1999, defined deprived areas as being characterised by at least one of the following conditions: (1) the existence of mono-industrial productive structures accounting for 50% or more of the region's total employees; (2) over 25% of the employees in the area affected by collective layoffs due to the restructuring of economic units; (3) an unemployment rate 30% or more higher than the national average; or (4) isolated areas with poorly developed infrastructure (Cocheci, 2015). The financial incentives offered to firms established in these areas did not have the expected impact, however, and did not lead to the economic development of the deprived areas (Săgeată, 2012).…”

Territorial fragmentation in post-communist Romania: the not so curious case of a de-amalgamation reform

“…Fragmentation is particularly visible in rural areas, where most of the splits investigated here happened. Throughout the 20 th century, successive reforms have reduced the number of communes (rural local governments comprising several villages): from 8,751 in 1936 to 2,706 in 1968 (Săgeată 2012). Communes were historically built as some form of inter-municipal structure (Săgeată 2012), but this character has dissipated through multiple administrative changes associated with the political regimes of 20 th -century Romania.…”

“…Alongside other countries in the region, Romania has moved towards fragmentation (Kopric 2012;Swianiewicz 2010). Since 1991, when a new democratic constitution paved the way for autonomous local government, there has been a constant increase in the number of local governments (Săgeată 2012). The increase is concentrated particularly in the first half of the 2000s (of 235 splits, 219 occurred between 2002 and 2005), in rural areas (230 out of 235), and more frequently in the eastern and southern parts of the territory (see Appendix).…”