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| JOURNAL OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT - Issues |
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| ARTICLES |
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In general, a comprehensive and well-designed local self-government will significantly improve community management in the Republic of Macedonia. The increased competences and strengthening of the political culture of the population will result in a more active participation of citizens in local processes. An increase in the professional level of the executive and administrative bodies along with improved communication with a civil society will have a positive impact on the quality of municipal management. Decentralized approaches to local development can be a sustainable way to preserve multiculturalism in an ethnically and culturally diverse country. The outcome of the process will depend on the level of public engagement, accountability of local leaders, and transparency of procedures. |
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eng |
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The public services which fulfil some common social needs are provided by public, private and mixed institutions in Macedonia. Their legal framework is the Public Institution Act. Public institutions can be established by the state-owned, municipal and private funds. An institution has the capacity of a legal person with the rights and obligations determined by law. It can conclude contracts and perform legal affairs within the professional framework as it is registered in the Central Register. Each institution has its own bodies: the management board, director, a supervisory body and other bodies determined by law. During the 17-year process of Macedonia’s approaching the Euro-Atlantic integration and legal harmonization, the field of profession-specific organizations, oriented solely at providing public services, has undergone major changes. The results of these changes are still to be measured and assessed. |
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eng |
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This paper is about the local utility services in the decentralization process in the Republic of Macedonia. Particular emphasis is placed on the legal framework for financing municipal utility services through the decentralization process. Since the utility service tariffs are relatively low, the Macedonian utility companies want to increase their tariffs up to cost recovery levels to achieve higher standards required by the EU Directives. The paper also deals with financial relations between the central and local authorities versus the utility company management and the current state of providing utility services in light of financial issues. It has been found out that there is a huge potential to improve user charges. However, due to the current economic situation and the unwillingness of customers to pay higher fees, this solution cannot be applied for the time being. |
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eng |
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Public-private partnership was not unknown in Macedonia prior to the adoption of the latest legislation on concessions and PPP in 2007. Many infrastructure and other public interest projects have been developed or tried in the form of concessions mainly at the state level over the past few years. The Concession and Other Forms of Public-Private Partnerships Act marks an important step towards stimulating more intensive use of public-private partnerships, particularly in developing infrastructure and public services at the local self-government level. One has to welcome the introduction of this very concept of the Public-Private Partnerships Act into the Macedonian legal system because it brings this form of financing local development closer to both public and private partners, and it makes the whole process of structuring and awarding PPP projects more transparent and clear. |
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UDK:
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351.71:347.72(497.4) |
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When national authorities decide what activities will be needed to provide public goods and to what extent, they must also make a decision on the modes of allocation and distribution of public goods (which are the objects of public service provision) among users. In the practice of the EU Member States, a variety of diverse public service provision systems can be found. They vary between the public sector and the market, and they include numerous and highly diverse organisational forms of public service provision. A public enterprise is one of them. In the Slovenian legal regulation, a variety of problems arise due to the deficiencies in the existing public enterprise organisation. These problems mostly result from some public enterprise status issues regulated under private law. The biggest problem of statutory regulation of the public enterprise status in Slovenia is certainly the absence of a special organisational model of the public enterprise. |
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Through the public procurement rules, protection of competition, equality of choice and transparency of the procedure in relationships between the public and private sectors are provided, to the greatest extent possible, in the EU rules. All the contractual relationships between the public and private sectors cannot be subject to strict and formal rules on public procurement primarily due to the special nature of business operations, complexity and duration of the relationships. Concessions or public-private partnerships of a concessionary nature are excluded from the legal regime that applies to public procurement. This paper analyses the contractual relationships of the concessionary nature and the EU efforts for ensuring a certain degree of equal treatment of private partners entering into public-private partnerships. |
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UDK:
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351.71:347.72(497.4) |
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Among the tasks performed by the Slovenian municipalities to meet the needs of individual residents there is also the provision of local public services. A municipality provides the performance of the public services determined by the municipality itself, and the performance of the public services established by law (local public services). The legal foundations for the regulation and operation of public utility services are given primarily in the Local Self-Government Act and in the Public Utilities Act, as well as in sector-specific laws for individual services. The overview of public utility services and the modes of their performance in two urban municipalities indicate that in Slovenian municipalities, public utility services are performed primarily in two ways: in public enterprises and by awarding a public service concession. |
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