Suchergebnisse

International pressure prevented Croatia from ending the occupation of eastern Slavonia by military means. The author claims that the policy of peaceful integration and the UNTAES mandate are rife with risks which might jeopardize the eventual Croatian control of that region. He points out a set of contentious issues related to the occupied territory: the incomplete demilitarization, dual government (parallel UNTAES and Serbian authorities), no return for the non-Serbian refugees, staying on of the Serbs from other parts of Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. Particularly risky for Croatia are the efforts of the local Serbs to retain absolute ethnic majority as the grounds for establishing territorial autonomy which would enable the militant accolytes of Greater Serbian politics to remain in the region and push for the secession and annexation by Serbia, the efforts which would in all probability be given military support by Serbia, this time under the circumstances which would be much more unfavourable for Croatia than in 1995. The author concludes that for Croatia the only acceptable solution is the total integration of eastern Slavonia and the establishment of full Croatian sovereignty while the creation of a Serbian autonomous province in that region must on no account be permitted. (SOI: PM: S. 188)

The Sarajevo Convention, on which the Sarajevo Declaration and the Pact on Stability were adopted, is a kind of a finale to the ten-year contlict in the Balkan region. The most important pioneers in that dynamic process of Europe's preparation for accepting the countries of Europe's South-East have been the Brussels study by the Center for political analyses, the German "new politics" and the US support. The analyses of the goals and mechanisms of the Pact show that it is a major political instrument, though hailed as a mixed blessing. If all the actors - states, nongovernmental organizations, associations, and individuals - are provided with long-term conditions for creating affiliations, joint views and projects, the process of building better relations may be initiated. The Europeisation of South-East Europe is going to be a lengthy and complex process, and the Pact on Stability may become an important form of building new relations in this region. (SOI : PM: S. 22)

Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC), as a form of decentralized implementation of public services and as a part of the local government system, is seen as a means to ensure balanced regional development, better quality of public services, as well as a way to adjust the needs of government organization to the needs of a society, with respect to its structural characteristics and needs. In this paper, the basic forms of inter-municipal cooperation, subjects of cooperation, ways in which the cooperation operates, areas in which the cooperation is achieved, nature of the jurisdiction, financing and management methods, affecting factors, and the specific advantages and disadvantages of this form of decentralized implementation of public services are specified, through the analysis of relevant international documents from this field, experiences and practices from different European countries, as well as normative frameworks and practices of inter-municipal cooperation in Serbia. Bearing in mind that the practice of inter-municipal cooperation has not sufficiently come to life in Serbia, and that there is a number of questions related to it and to the other aspects of decentralization, this research is intended to boost the intensive progress of inter-municipal cooperation in Serbia, as a means to improve the decentralization of public services, and also to overcome the problems local governments are facing. The author finds that, unlike alternative solutions, inter-municipal cooperation preserves local autonomy, strengthening the capacity at the local level and ensuring the implementation of territorial reforms that are conducted "from below", according to the needs of the citizens. Inter-municipal cooperation, regardless of its form, is a type of decentralized implementation of public services. Although it is suspected that the certain form of concentration is achieved through integrated forms of cooperation, these tasks are still performed within a level that is not central; the state does not take any additional role, which would reduce the degree of independence of the entities that are not central, i.e. reduce the decentralized character of these services, or which would strengthen the centralizing tendencies of the state or strengthen state control. In Europe, you can see many examples of very effective cooperation, which has proved to be a solution not just for many structural problems of local government, but also for the vertical government organization in general. IMC provided the solutions that alternatively required radical changes in the territorial organization. Also, IMC proved to be a mechanism that provided regional policy, development goals, public-private partnerships and territorial harmonization. The existing legislative framework of inter-municipal cooperation in Serbia mainly emphasizes voluntary cooperation of individual local governments, without a hint of a widespread or better controlled integration. Apart from the fact that the obligatory cooperation is only an exception, even some of the fundamental questions of its establishment and implementation are not regulated. The need for cooperation consists mainly in providing the regional services and equitable development, in overcoming the limitations, as well as in the more adequate use of local capacities. However, the regulatory framework does not provide a reliable basis for the establishment of high quality, durable and effective partnerships. Given the existence of asymmetric decentralization, one-level local governments, uneven capacities, as well as the development of decentralized units in Serbia, some of the solutions of inter-municipal cooperation can be considered a means of ensuring regional requirements in countries that are characterized by similar solutions, i.e. problems, without any change in the constitutional concept of decentralization. The main areas where the promotion of decentralized systems can be established are regional and spatial development planning, public utility services, tourism, civil and environment protection services, local governments and so on.