How a Map is Drawn

Regionalization has been a recurring theme in Romania in the last few years.

Corina Cristea, 01.03.2013, 12:17

The political class largely supports the idea, using the argument of more easily accessed European funds that the move is supposed to bring. The process, however, stalled at the point where the lines establishing Romania’s regions were supposed to be drawn. The significant Hungarian minority living mostly in the middle of the country, in the counties of Harghita, Covasna and Mures, would like to form one region, but the decision makers in Bucharest insist that Romania’s regions will never be redrawn based on ethnic criteria.

Deputy Prime Minister Liviu Dragnea has recently announced that the designing of the legal framework needed to decentralize administration has begun. Dragnea heads the joint ministerial committee that will be gathering the studies and reports of the Advisory Council, which is made up of experts, politicians, local administration officials and representatives of civil society. The final draft is supposed to be issued on July 1st, and will be attempting to set the eight development regions decided on in principle in 2007. The head of one of the regions, Simion Cretu, expects the process to take longer.

“I don’t think this process will take only two years. The timetable is longer, if we are to end up with regions that can function properly. There will be problems everywhere, problems with the capitals of those regions, with the way in which each region will be run in the interim period, between 2014 and 2016, until the next local elections, which will probably be regional elections too.”

Simion Cretu is in favor of wider consultation in order to assure the success of this process. Diana Iancu, who holds a PhD in administrative sciences, specializing in multi-level government, shares the opinion. Speaking for Radio Romania, she insisted that decision makers working on the project must not lose sight that the most important factor here is the main beneficiary, the citizen:

“This regionalization as it is being discussed now by the government, is seen mostly as a technical solution. I believe we should start talking about the added value of such a type of governance which is closer to the citizen. Beyond the discussion on who holds competence in what area, who attracts or multiplies European funds, I think the main issue is who answers in relation to the citizens. Citizens can openly ask: who takes the blame if things don’t work out?”

The principles for administrative organization issued by the government provide that the future regions will have a council and a president elected by the people, who will be managing local budgets, European money and funds from the government, with enhanced authority as compared to the present county administration. The number, configuration and way in which the new territorial units will function are to be established by public consultation, preserving the counties which Romania is divided into at this time. There is a risk that the administrative structure may actually become more cumbersome, instead of simplifying things. Diana Iancu told us her opinion:

“There are always fears of this sort. At least right now, within the EU there’s talk rather of recentralization, not decentralization. Increased attention has been given to cross-municipal and cross-territorial arrangements, territorial groupings that transcend national borders, but there are other cases too. For instance, Slovakia, where territorial fragmentation is tremendous; but, if we look how they develop economically, we could take Slovakia as a possible solution for success. We are pushing fragmentation very far, and the question is to what extent competencies will overlap, and how much more complicated the chain of decision becomes.”

Diana Iancu also recalled other European role models that Romania could emulate:

“When we talk about role models or best practices, there are some general norms, there is a fundamental principle, which in my opinion has to occur as close to the citizen as possible. I am looking, for instance, at the territorial reforms undertaken by Denmark, or the group of arrangements that Sweden has. I am also looking at the rather more centralized way in which Holland functions. The Czech Republic also has a very interesting governance, a multilevel governance.”

These are just a few examples of where Bucharest could get ideas on how regions might work, taking into account local specifics and expectations.