How can Slovakia strengthen local governance, what policies and reforms should be implemented?

Our technical assistance project "Delivering Good Governance in Slovakia - II phase" contributes to an expert debate on these questions and helps identify the best solutions for Slovakia.

The Board of project, steering the activities around the questions above, held its second meeting on 26 May 2021, online. It brought together representatives of the Slovak Ministry of the Interior, the Permanent Representative of Slovakia to the Council of Europe, representative of the Prime Minister’s office, the European Commission's DG REFORM, and other key stakeholders, local partner institutions, international experts and the Council of Europe’s Centre of Expertise for Good Governance which implements the project. The members of the Board discussed the progress in the implementation of the project, identification of new project partners and the timeline for implementation of the activities.

The Council of Europe experts presented a number of important documents, prepared under the project so far, notably: the Strategy for strengthening of the local government, a Peer Review Report on territorial consolidation and a Policy advice on the improvement of the structure and competences of local governments in Slovakia. In addition, four more policy documents should be prepared until the end of the project, such as: policy advice on the status of the Slovak cities and municipalities, on the coordinating role of the regions, on the status of the cities of Bratislava and Kosice, and on management of local finance.

The next steps under the project will also include implementation of the Centre of Expertise’ toolkits on strategic municipal and regional planning, local finance benchmarking, public ethics benchmarking, preparation of training programmes for local authorities and a second round of the European Label of Governance Excellence.