The Council on decentralization of the government adopted a 10 year Strategy

The Council on decentralization of the government adopted the draft of the Decentralization Strategy (2016-2025) and the draft of the Programme for implementation of the Decentralization Strategy (2016-2019). This happened during the first annual meeting of the Council, chaired by the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works, Ivan Asparuhov. 

The version of the Strategy, proposed by the Ministry, was prepared after a serious expert work, various discussions with all concerned parties as well as coordination between institutions and public organizations. Probably, it is not the perfect document, but it reflects to the greatest extent the point of view of all participants in the process. With this statement Deputy Minister Asparuhov made a prelude to the presenting of the Strategy draft and the four-year Programme draft for its implementation.

Based on the overall analysis of the condition of the decentralization process, that covers the period from 1991 to 2015, a defensive strategy, aimed at maximum saving of resources as well as reducing the amount of activities, has been developed. On this basis a vision has been defined that provides authorities of municipal, district and regional level to have at their disposal enough quantity of their own resources in order to exercise a wide range of powers and provide qualitative public services, with the active involvement of citizens in government.

The vision could be achieved by working on four strategic objectives:
•    Delegation of powers and functions from central to local government in key sectors; 
•    Ensuring an adequate distribution of resources between the central and the local level;
•    Civil control over the actions of the public institutions;
•    Improving the services with regional coverage, aimed at investments and growth.


The members of the Council also discussed a bill on amending the Law on public finances. The draft was presented by Deputy Minister of Finance, Kiril Ananiev. The proposed changes lay down an order for initiation of a procedure for financial strengthening of municipalities and taking a number of measures for financial sustainability and stability.

The drafts of the two documents are about to be submitted for consideration in the Council of Ministers respectively by MRDPW and the Ministry of Finance.

The Council on decentralization adopted a Work program of activities for 2016 as well.