The draft law on the new administrative-territorial division has already been tabled in the Assembly and has also undergone a rapid “clearance” on its way to adoption. The context of adoption is marked by a clash between the 15 affected municipalities, on one side, which have expressed their opposition through the municipal councils, and the central government, on the other. This clash has steered the debate towards the number, but whether +15 or −15 municipalities changes the local landscape in Albania is unlikely to produce an effect, particularly when the problems of local government are structural rather than numerical, linked mainly to the fact that the decentralisation of functions is not accompanied by budgetary decentralisation.
Nevertheless, in circumstances where about 230 thousand inhabitants and their 15 towns lose the status of a municipality, the territorial problem turns into a social problem, with consequences for demography and local democracy.
1. How the “dissolution” of 15 municipalities is justified
1.1. The distance criterion, in kilometres
In the explanatory report accompanying the draft law, one of the main arguments for territorial reorganisation concerns the distance and accessibility of local units from the new administrative centre. In the case of merging Dimal with Berat, for example, it is argued that the centre of Dimal Municipality lies about 20 km, or about 30 minutes, from the new centre in Berat.
But if distance in kilometres and travel time are used as a criterion for deciding the merger, the question naturally arises: why Dimal with Berat, and not with Kuçova? The distance between Dimal and Kuçova is about 10 km, clearly shorter than that to Berat. If the logic of territorial proximity were applied consistently, a merger with Kuçova would look an equally, if not more, reasonable alternative. Such a choice could also be justified by the aim of strengthening another urban centre, rather than concentrating territorial expansion on a municipality already as consolidated as Berat (1).
The same applies to Cërrik, Belsh and Elbasan. Cërrik and Belsh are relatively close to each other and form a territorial area with important geographical, economic and historical links. If the criterion of proximity in kilometres were decisive, a logical alternative would be to merge Cërrik with Belsh, which are closer to each other than to Elbasan, creating the Municipality of Dumreja, with a distinct historical identity and tradition.
Likewise, in the case of Rrogozhina, the report proposes a merger with Kavaja. But if distance is used as one of the fundamental arguments of the reform, it must be explained why Rrogozhina is linked to Kavaja and not to Peqin, when the latter appears a closer alternative in terms of distance.
Here, the problem is not the use of distance as one of the criteria for territorial reorganisation, but the way in which this criterion is applied. If distance and access time are presented as arguments justifying the merger of local units, then these criteria must be applied uniformly, objectively and not selectively to every possible territorial alternative.
1.2. Financial aspects
According to data from the Ministry of Finance (2), 12 of the 15 municipalities intended for dissolution are classified as having “no financial problems”. This group includes Belsh, Divjaka, Fushë-Arrëz, Këlcyra, Klos, Libohova, Patos, Maliq, Memaliaj, Poliçan, Prrenjas and Selenica. The classification is based on the Ministry of Finance methodology for assessing the financial-difficulty status of local units.
Meanwhile, only some of the municipalities proposed for reorganisation fall into the categories linked to financial problems. Cërrik and Peqin are classified as municipalities with financial problems, while Dimal, Kavaja and Rrogozhina are classified as being in financial difficulty.
The comparison of per-capita revenue, used in the draft law’s own explanatory report, also produces results that do not sit easily with the logic of the reorganisation. Fushë-Arrëz, one of the municipalities proposed for dissolution, has per-capita revenue of 7,427 lek, while Puka, which will remain a municipality, has 5,344 lek per capita. The municipality proposed for dissolution therefore has a higher level of per-capita revenue than the municipality to which it would be attached.
A similar situation appears in the case of Poliçan, which has 12,102 lek in per-capita revenue, while Berat Municipality has 7,048 lek. Here too, the smaller municipality proposed for merger shows a clearly higher level of per-capita revenue than the receiving municipality.
In the case of Dimal, the difference is relatively limited: Berat has about 939 lek more in per-capita revenue than Dimal, 7,048 compared with 6,109 lek. In the case of Patos and Fier, per-capita revenues are almost the same, with a difference of only 60 lek in favour of Fier.
These data do not, in themselves, prove that all the municipalities proposed for dissolution should remain unchanged. But they show that “financial efficiency” cannot be taken as an automatic conclusion from territorial size or from the need to merge. If a municipality proposed for dissolution is financially stable and has per-capita revenue equal to, or even higher than, the receiving municipality, then it must be explained concretely what financial or institutional problem the dissolution solves, and against which indicators the expected benefit is measured.
2. What force do the decisions of the 15 municipal councils have?
Another important issue concerns the decisions of the 15 municipal councils that have expressed opposition to the draft law on the territorial reform. These decisions have no power of veto. They cannot prevent the Assembly from exercising its competence to adopt the law and to determine the administrative-territorial division. But that does not mean these decisions are without legal or institutional importance. In Decision No. 19/2015 (in the review of the 2014 reform), the Constitutional Court linked a change in the boundaries of local self-government units to the obligation to obtain the opinion of the affected population. For this reason, the position of the municipal councils, as an expression of local autonomy as provided by the European Charter of Local Self-Government, is an element that must be taken into account in the reform process. The Constitutional Court has stated:
“The essence of the principle of self-government, under Article 108/1 of the Constitution, is that local self-government units, in the concrete exercise of the competences granted to them by the Constitution, must be given the opportunity to take a position on the territorial reform or on any other regulation that would result, among other things, in a change of the boundaries between units. The purpose of the opportunity to be heard is that local self-government units should not become the object of the activity of central government, but participants in the reform.”
The neuralgic point of this Constitutional Court decision is the question of “consent”, which creates a lacuna legis, a legal vacuum. The explanatory report reasons that consent is not necessary, by reference to this decision, but rather the fact that an opinion is obtained. In fact the Constitutional Court, as noted above, has held that, regardless of the details, the hearing process must include as a minimum condition the formal participation of the residents of the local self-government units affected by the reform in a discussion in which not only is the final variant to be adopted presented, but it remains open to possible changes, according to the suggestions of the community, where there are any.
Thus, the question is not whether the 15 municipal councils can block the reform. The question is whether their objections have been heard, analysed and genuinely addressed. If a municipal council, as the representative body of the community, formally expresses opposition to a change in its territory, the law-making process must be able to explain how that position has been treated. This becomes even more important when the changes directly affect territorial identity, local representation and the way citizens will relate to their local institution. The force of these 15 decisions therefore does not lie in a right of veto, but in the weight they carry in assessing the quality and substance of public consultation. If the opinion of communities is taken only in order to fulfil a procedure formally, then the question arises whether this is a real consultation or merely a procedural one.
3. From historical performance to future potential
One of the shortcomings of the proposed reform is that the assessment of municipalities appears to rest mainly on their historical performance, whereas a territorial reform ought to be oriented towards their capacity and potential for the future. Reforms are not made in order to correct the past, but to build a more functional future. This is precisely one of the main challenges of the new reform: to move from the logic of “how far one municipality is from another” to the logic of “what this territory can do for its citizens today, and what potential it has to do so tomorrow”.
In this sense, efficiency should not be the justification for changing the map. It should be the result that the reform aims to produce. Measuring distances, the size of the territory or past performance may be part of the analysis, but it cannot replace an assessment of the capacities and future potential of the territories.
Former external public auditor and expert on governance and anti-corruption at the Institute for Democracy and Mediation
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