Preliminary communication
Special Legal Status of Bratislava as a European Capital City
Frédéric Delaneuville
; University of Picardi – Jules Verne, France
Abstract
After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992, Bratislava regained its status of a European capital. This city with rich history also known under the name of Presbourg or Pozsony passed through different empires and regimes until it became the centre of the emancipation effort of the Slovak nation. A historical approach allows a better understanding of the development and functioning of the capital of the young Slovak Republic. As many capitals and agglomerations in general, it has grown gradually integrating the surrounding municipalities. This occasionally authoritarian amalgamation was considered as an excess of the previous centralized regime. The tendency to grant broad autonomy to local governments during the democratic transition also had an impact on the organization and competences of the districts of Bratislava. Its organization is rather decentralized and each district is a legal entity with a wide autonomy. This organization could be attractive from a democratic point of view but it is costly and could cause problems in terms of coherence. Actually, there is a great heterogeneity of districts in Bratislava in terms of population, surface, and development strategy. The issues are sometimes different, which explains conflicts in the relationship between the city level and districts. The fact that districts have
wide competences and their own fiscal resources sometimes leads to competition between then and to the detriment of coherence at the city level. A number of reforms have been adopted to modernize the status of Bratislava. These reforms are encouraging but some other reforms should be envisaged in order to create governance that is more coherent. Nowadays, when the European capitals have launched an intense competition on the best fundamental reform of a capital city’s status, it seems to be a necessary step to take on the way to more efficient and affordable governance.
Keywords
Bratislava; special legal status; European capital cities; Central Europe; decentralization
Hrčak ID:
132674
URI
Publication date:
15.3.2012.
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