NEWS

Promotion of Balanced Regional Development

The Government determined the text of the Draft Act Amending the Promotion of Balanced Regional Development Act.

In view of the goals, amendments to the Promotion of Balanced Regional Development Act are proposed in the following three fields:

- the rationalisation of administrative procedures and additional savings in the use of public funds,
- the improvement of systemic solutions that proved difficult to implement after the enforcement of the Promotion of Balanced Regional Development Act last March, and
- the upgrade of regional policy for its inclusion in the EU cohesion policy in the new 2014-2020 programme period.
 
The rationalisation of administrative procedures and additional savings in the use of public funds will be achieved:
- by the abolition of the register of regional mangers,
- by the abolition of the Council for the Territorial Co-ordination of Development Initiatives; its task will be assumed by the state body responsible for regional policies,
- by eliminating the obligations of municipalities to establish regional development agencies as public institutions and introducing the obligation of a majority public share in the ownership structure of regional development agencies,
- by simplifying the procedures for concluding agreements on regional development between the regional development council and the state body responsible for regional policy (formerly, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia), and
- by establishing the legal basis for the merger of the Slovenian Regional Development Fund and the Slovene Enterprise Fund into a single public fund.
 

Systemic solutions that proved difficult to implement after the enforcement of the Promotion of Balanced Regional Development Act last March will be improved in:

- the manner in which regional development councils are formed by abolishing the obligation of municipal councils adopting the decision to establish a regional development council and the simplification of elections for council members,
- the decision making of regional development councils, by changing the current proportion of votes of the representatives of the municipalities, the business and non-governmental sector. After the change, the public interest represented by the representatives of municipalities will have a majority,
- in the structure of decision making bodies in a development region, by introducing regional councils consisting of the mayors in the development region.
 

The upgrade of regional policy for its successful inclusion in the EU cohesion policy in the new 2014-2020 programme period will be established by:

- determining the limits for border municipalities to progress into a different development region,

- introducing cohesion regions at the NUTS2 territorial level,
- introducing development councils of cohesion regions as decision-making bodies and secretariats at the regional level.