TERRITORIAL CONSOLIDATION REFORMS – EUROPEAN EXPERIENCES OF 21ST CENTURY

The last decade has brought re-invigorated discussions about territorial reforms in numerous European countries. The intensity of the reforms has especially grown with the beginning of economic turn-down in 2008, since several countries perceived territorial reforms as an element of cost-saving and austerity measures. The paper discusses experiences of reforms implemented after 2000 in Albania, Georgia, Greece, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Macedonia and Netherlands, with an emphasis on the reforms in two Balkan countries. Most of reforms were rooted in economy of scale paradigm suggesting that larger scale of territorial units may support both lowering of unit costs and quality of local government performance in service delivery. The impact on local democracy has not been part of the main discourse, and it was practically disregarded in some of the countries.