Decentralisation and Regionalisation in Portugal by OECD

Author:OECD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: governance/regions
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Published: 2020-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

Summary of the country examples

While public expenditure is mostly centralised in France, local and regional authorities are very important actors in public investments (being responsible for about 57% of public investments). The French model of multilevel governance has seen several important changes during the past decades. These reforms include the creation of metropolitan councils (métropoles) in France’s largest cities, a merger reform of the regions and enhanced central fiscal control of local authorities. From the Portuguese aspect, the French case is an example of step-by-step process of regionalisation. The French experiences illustrate well the challenges to reform the existing multilevel governance, especially in a situation where there are two types of intermediate government, i.e. the départements and regions.

Poland restored its independence and democracy in 1989. Since then, Poland has implemented several decentralisation reforms. As a result, the current system of subnational government consists of three tiers: 16 regions (vojvodships), 380 counties (powiats) and 2 478 municipalities (gminas). Each level operates independently in the sense that each has its own assignments and levels of government are not in a hierarchical position with each other. This situation has forced the different subnational units and levels of subnational government to create intercommunal links for common projects such as major infrastructure investments with regionwide effects.

Although Poland adopted the laws on decentralisation fairly quickly in the early 1990s, reforms were based on intensive public discussions. The fact that everyone was encouraged to participate in the public debate on decentralisation promoted inclusiveness and feeling of ownership of the reforms among citizens. Subsequently, the reform plans were accepted and the implementation of the reforms sequenced, which fostered learning-by-doing and enabled revising plans if needed. Building capacity of the subnational governments to assume the new tasks has been a top priority in Poland. In this process, training and information activities, often organised using nongovernmental organisations, have had a key role in the reform implementation. Portugal could be inspired by the Polish experiences in the implementation of decentralisation and regionalisation reforms.

Finland has a single-tier subnational government, composed of 295 municipalities. There are also more than 300 joint municipal authorities, delivering services in health, education and social sectors. The responsibility for regional development and managing EU funds is also organised through intermunicipal co-operation. Municipalities are obliged by law to be members of 1 of the 18 regional joint municipal authorities. Municipalities nominate the regional council members and are responsible for funding of the regional councils. In addition to the regional councils, municipalities are obliged to belong to a joint municipal authority for specialised health services (so-called hospital districts). While obligatory co-operation forms an important part of municipal service delivery, intermunicipal co-operation is organised mostly on a voluntary basis in Finland. Especially municipalities with small population and weak own-revenue bases have engaged in co-operative arrangements. Finnish experiences from intermunicipal co-operation, in particular at the regional level, could provide an interesting example for Portugal.

The recent regional reform proposals by the Finnish government could provide another set of interesting experiences for Portugal. In

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