Over 700 town halls involved in amalgamation process

More and more town halls across the country are deciding to consolidate their efforts to ensure efficient local development and to provide better services for citizens. So far, over 570 voluntary amalgamation decisions have been adopted, and around 700 town halls nationwide are involved in this process. The updated information was presented today by Secretary General of the Government Alexei Buzu.


“Every day we are in the field, we talk to local representatives, mayors, citizens, we consult with them. Every week we have more and more town halls that are involved in this process. Our estimates show that, at the moment, we have approximately 700 town halls that are involved in the process of merging and consolidation, and so far we have 570 decisions by local councils that concern the initiation of the consolidation and merger process. We stand by our colleagues in the town halls and in the local councils. We will offer them all the necessary support. We understand that this is by no means an easy process, but it is absolutely necessary if we want to ensure local and regional development,” said Alexei Buzu after today’s Government meeting.


Town halls that wish to undergo the voluntary amalgamation process must adopt their decisions by July.


“On the basis of these decisions, the Government will prepare the new law on the administrative-territorial structure of the country. It will be approved in Parliament in the autumn of this year, because we need one year of predictability for all actors involved – the Central Electoral Commission, political parties, and the Government – to work with these town halls and prepare this process. And we, including after the approval of the final amalgamation decisions, will work on developing local priorities,” underlined the Secretary General of the Government.


Alexei Buzu emphasized that the town halls involved in the amalgamation process will benefit from state incentives.


“We will provide the incentive tripled by the Government. We are talking about over 5.6 billion lei, the equivalent of three thousand lei per capita for residents of those town halls that wish to consolidate,” the official explained.


At the end of January, the Government officially announced the launch of the process to prepare the local public administration reform, as part of efforts to modernize the administration and improve the quality of public services provided to the population. Subsequently, broad consultations on the reform were held with all interested parties, at the end of which the Government presented the reform concept.

According to amendments recently approved by Parliament, the process of voluntary amalgamation of administrative-territorial units will be simplified and improved, as an essential part of the local public administration reform. The amendments were drafted following an extensive public consultation process, in which over 4,500 mayors and citizens participated.