Bulletin n. 1/2012
June 2012
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Hertzog Robert
    La réforme des collectivités territoriales : une ambition financière
    in Revue française d'administration publique , n. 141 ,  2012 ,  121-137
    Reform of Local and Regional Authorities: A Financial Ambition — The law of 16 December 2010 reforming local and regional authorities does not have a direct financial objective, apart from some ad hoc arrangements. It is nonetheless very deeply involved in public finance, staying in the background and aiming to significantly rework the architecture of decentralised authorities in order to reduce costs, which is now a priority due to the serious public finance crisis affecting all other policy areas. Public finances must be reined in for all policy areas and the performance of administrations must be improved. Two sets of measures target this objective. The first concern simplifying structures through provisions which allow for merging authorities, not only at municipal level but also at the level of départements, regions and inter-communal bodies. This type of operation can only produce modest results, which is all the more the case since elected representatives have been given the freedom to chose whether or not they will take part. The other measures regard competences, the complexity and inadequacy of which have long been criticised. Lawmakers did not have the audacity to go for a full fledged, systematic overhaul. Instead, they introduce complicated rules for specialisation of competences at regional and département level, of the management of co-financing and subsidies and of redistribution of competences among categories of territorial authorities which will not make it possible to save much money.
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