The Process of Decentralization in Bulgaria and the Necessity of Introducing Regional Self-Government
Author:Assistant Professor Yuliyana Chavdarova Galabinova
JEL:
DOI:
Keywords:CEE countries;
• Decentralization;
• Self-government;
• Regions;
• Municipalities;
• Sub-national levels.
Abstract:
In the recent years many Central and
Eastern European Countries (CEEC) are rearranging
their regional levels of
administration. After the political transition,
the newly established democratic governments
and parliaments focused on the establishment
of local self-governments and local political
elites with democratic legitimacy. This led to
formation of accountable and relatively
autonomous local self-governments in
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
Poland, Slovenia, and Slovakia. It has been
only since the mid-nineties that the regional
level of government has received more
attention in the CEE.
To date, Bulgaria and Estonia are the
only countries which have not established legal
prerequisites for self-governments at the
regional level. Regions are an integral part of
the state administration in both countries,
although county assemblies in Estonia facilitate
a participation of the delegates of local selfgovernments
at the regional level. In the
process of the decentralization in Bulgaria the
role of the regions (regional administrations)
and the role of the state functions with regional
meaning were undervalued. The concept for
decentralization is based basically on the
traditional understanding of the process as a
transfer of power and resources from the
national to the local level.