Round table organized by PALGO Center and SCTM:
Necessity of Enacting the Law on the City of Belgrade
Discussion on PALGO’s proposal of the Draft Law on the City of Belgrade
Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, November 22, 2006
Round table organized by PALGO Center and Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (SCTM) presented an expert discussion on the Draft Law on the City of Belgrade, as a basis for the future status of Belgrade, its prerogatives and prerequisites for a better life in it.
The themes were divided in three groups:
- Status, local elections, organization and administration
- Moderator: Mijat Damjanovic
- Key speakers: Snezana Djordjevic and Dusan Vasiljevic
- Competences, the quality of services
- Moderator: Zoran Alimpic
- Key speakers: Zlatko Stefanovic and Dejan Milenkovic
- Financing and property
- Moderator: Djordje Stanicic
- Key speakers: Dusan Bajec and Zoran Njegovan
Nenad Bogdanovic, Mayor of the City of Belgrade, opened the meeting by emphasizing that without a proper definition of local self-government units and their status and relations there can be no regional networking, crucial for the economic development of Serbia.
“In this country, local self-government units have no real power, they are merely forms of territorial organization. Due to my experience for six and a half last years and due to all the communication that I had with numerous local government representatives, I think that without the possibility for local communities to work together regionally and without a proper definition of their status and perspectives, there can be no smooth economic development of Serbia.” (Nenad Bogdanovic)
Today, the relation between central and local level is based on the principle of subordination, and the political elite does not recognize local government as a level of local authority but more as an element of territorial organization. The new Constitution has not clearly defined local self-government while other relevant laws are to be adopted: the Law on Cities; the new Law on Local Self-Government, the Law on Territorial Organization and the Law on the City of Belgrade. It was said that after parliamentary elections (in January 2007), the Constitution should be changed in the part concerning local self-government. The City of Belgrade, like many other cities and municipalities, sees in the inadequate status of its local self-government an obstacle to a greater development. This is why the City of Belgrade is very interested in the whole process of providing local self-governments the status they truly deserve.
Mayor Bogdanovic pointed out that an essential issue that the Law on the City of Belgrade should deal with is the clear-cut division of competences. Explicit competences call for unambiguous responsibilities and personal responsibility is one of the crucial elements of local self-government.
“It is not acceptable that competences are not clearly demarcated. When you have competences clearly defined and demarcated then you have precisely ascertained responsibilities as well. I think that responsibility is in the essence of the ocal self-government work. Citizens must know who is responsible for what. That is why the presidential system is so important. In 90% of developed countries, at the level of local self-government responsibility is personalized. And I have absolutely no doubt that, in Belgrade, municipalities presidents should be elected directly.” (Nenad Bogdanovic)
President of SCTM and president of Novi Beograd municipality, Zeljko Ozegovic, emphasized that the fact that Serbia did not ratify the European Charter of Local Self-Government, is the best sign of the relation between central and local government.
To pass on such Law on Belgrade it is crucial to achieve contrive political agreement. Unfortunately, local self-government in Serbia does not have the status that it is should have. In the past six years, we have witnessed many situations where local self-government was used for political scheming among political parties. I don’t think that anywhere in Europe or in very few places in the world, the decision of the electorate was simply and most straightforwardly altered – that the central government was directly involved in altering the voters choice at the local level. We also witnessed many political destitutions of municipal presidents, imposed from the central level.” (Zeljko Ozegovic)
Next to the necessity of legally defining the status of local self-government, it was also said that some changes need to be done in the new Constitution concerning local self-government, for instance the election of the municipal presidents and mayors for the reason that personalized responsibility represents one of the key elements of the managerial role of mayor. It was also said that the Draft Law on the City of Belgrade offered by PALGO Center could be a good starting point for discussion in the City government in the process of adoption of the Draft Law on the City of Belgrade. Enacting this law or a similar draft would represent a major turning point in the functioning of the City of Belgrade.
1. The opening part of the discussion focused on the status, local elections, and organization and administration. As Serbia is a typical transitional society, the problems are not solely in weak local government but also in maladministration and mismanagement at the state level; this weak state cannot full restructure itself and therefore it holds back all other parts of the society. The state is still a centralized system, having no confidence in local government, and it has no inttention of passing on some of its prerogatives. On the other side, there is a danger that present system of local political leaders recruitment remains dependent of the central government or different political centers of power – in that case, local self-government representatives will have no genuine interest to struggle for modern and innovative solutions.
“It is true that Serbia lacks political will in a number of issues. It is also a fact that when the process of stabilization and association to EU starts, everything will slowly defrost and that ice will crack. It is inevitable for us to validate the laws that are harmonized with the EU legislation, and that is only a question of time. This progression is inexorable. The fact that we are not capable of working faster for our own sake – instead, we are waiting for someone else to create perspective and develop potentials for us – this represents a great weakness of our scientific and academic community as it remains entrenched, too distant from the real life”. (Mijat Damjanovic)
The absence of local self-government economic autonomy as well as poor development of normative reconstruction in the sector of public policies such as health, education, social welfare, additionally burden the introduction of modern skills and their profiling in the proposed Draft Law. Consequently, in some parts it is possible only to imply but not definitely articulate certain functions that a modern city should have today.
It was also pointed out that Belgrade should not be considered only as a city but as a true metropolitan region. To be able to function properly, as a large metropolitan area, City of Belgrade needs to acquire certain competences, while some other competences should be passed on to the city municipalities. Regionalization of the whole country would initiate economic development as it would enable our access to European funds and, on the other side, it would develop the possibilities for interregional, international cooperation.
“Concerning the dilemma whether something will be adopted as such or not, everybody has a particular role in a society. Political parties and other subjects are qualified to struggle for imposing principles, political programs, to influence public opinion etc. The non-governmental organizations, professional bodies, think tanks must put their effort into providing the clearest solutions possible. Of course, in the political processes, it is possible that some changes occur but if the offered draft is cristal clear politicians know exactly why they desist from certain solutions and prefer others. The experts’ role is to explain how it could function if democratic principles, modern principles of entrepreneurial society, entrepreneurial local and central governments are applied. In this domain, urban political science, urban sociology, urban economy have all necessary solutions and it is only a question of what are we capable and willing to accept and apply.” (Snezana Djordjevic)
When decisions were made regarding government organization and administration, PALGO Center’s team was directed by principles of democratization and efficiency, aiming to overcome democratic deficit and to reaffirm the first level of local government, closest to citizens. The second level are city municipalities with the operational competences conceded by the City and third level implies City competences and instruments of cooperation between the City and municipal administrations in the interest of citizens and Belgrade as a region.
As to the issue of electing government bodies, it was emphasized that the mayor and municipality presidents should be elected directly. It was also mentioned that there were some considerations about introducing the optional possibility for City / municipal managers to be in charge of the whole City / municipal administration.
“We have given the optional possibility to the City, as to all central of suburban municipalities, to confer this additional responsibility to their City / municipal manager. That is one-step ahead towards evolution of the City manager position. In other countries, manager is responsible, besides stimulation of local economy growth, financing etc., for administration management also. We consider Belgrade, with the level of education of its population and economic development, to be the ideal environment for testing such concept.” (Snezana Djordjevic)
It was said that when defining the issue of local elections, PALGO Center’s team accepted following principles: to give citizens a greater role in the election process for local government bodies and to enhance the position of executive governing bodies, first of all the mayor and municipality presidents.
“Regarding the election process, the whole working group was directed by two key principles. The first was to give the citizens more important role in the election process for governing bodies of local self-government at the city level and the other was to enhance the position of executive governing bodies, of the mayor and municipality presidents, as much as possible. In this Draft Law City Assembly is composed of 90 councilors. For the first time, 61 councilors are elected in central municipalities and 29 coucilors are elected in suburban municipalities. We specified that central municipality councilors should be elected by the plurality voting system and not by proportional representative system and we see that as very important quality of this Draft Law. It is an important quality for local democracy. We did not define the electoral system for 29 councilors from the suburban municipalities but we did write down that the number of councilors for each suburban municipality should be determined in relation to the level of citizen participation, and to the number of citizens compared to the whole population of suburban municipalities”. (Dusan Vasiljevic)
Some of the examples read from the Draft are that citizens from central municipalities elect their councilors by plurality system while the system determined for suburban municipalities is proportional, there exist no City Council at the level of City Government, the mayor appoints the deputy mayor with the previously obtained City Assembly consideration, etc.
The rest of the discussion on this issue confirmed as positive the solution for urban councilors to be elected by plurality voting system and there were some dilemmas whether the municipality presidents who are directly elected should preside over the municipal assembly or not. As it was explaned, these are two different branches of government – executive and legislative, and these should not be mixed. Also, it was clarified that the role of sub-municipal (neighborhood) units, as bodies with no real authority, can still contribute to better life in local community. It was suggested that it might be useful to introduce the council of chief architects as an advisory body, which should coordinate the work of city and municipality architects. The possibility for the city manager to be also the chief of administration was appreciated. There were also some dilemmas if the Assembly sessions by councils would be in favour or not to the work efficiency because of the quorum manipulation possibilities.
2. The second part of the round table was dedicated to the competences and public service quality. The questions of the competences that the City of Belgrade should acquire from the central government (Republican level) and the competences that the City of Belgrade should concede to municipal level were emphasized as the most important ones. The authors of the Draft Law pointed out that competences are the central issue of this law and that the team members recognized about ten groups of competences that can be conceded from central government to City authorities and from City to municipal level.
At the round table, one could also hear the explanation of the article 189 of the new Constitution. It was said that this article enables towns and City of Belgrade to acquire specific competences. In Belgrade there are 1.700.000 inhabitants and we can add to that number some 200 to 300 thousand more if we take into account those who do not have the domicile in Belgrade but work in the Capital City. In total, it is about one quarter of Serbian population (for instance, the population of the Province of Vojvodina is about 2 million). These facts illustrate the need to transfer a great number of competences from central to the City level, above all in order to achieve good public service delivery and performance in the interest of the citizens.
“The citizens are those who the City must provide with solid services and the City can do that only if we transfer to its level certain competences. And this process of decentralization is the core element of the Draft Law. At the same time as some competences are being transferred from the Republic to the City level, other competences should also be moved from the City to the municipal or even to the sub-municipal level”. (Dejan Milenkovic)
Regarding the quality of services, the emphasis was put on two new bodies: a Commission that recommends directors, members of steering committees and councils, and a Regulatory body that guarantees high level and good service quality.
In the following discussion, it was said that the City of Belgrade, as well as other Serbian towns, shoul have the right to give concessions. It was also suggested that it would be useful to consider the possibility of creating the Guarantee funds as economic growth stimulation tools, and upon that the creation of industrial and technology parks as local self-government and private capital joint investment.
3. The subject of the last part of the Round table was financing and property issues. It was said, in the introductory address, that the Law on Local Self-government Financing, enacted in July 2006, will be applicable starting from January 2007, but that the Law on Local Self-government Property, although already set, has not met political agreement and therefore was not passed before the new Serbian Constitution.
The City representative spoke in favor of asymmetric positioning of the City of Belgrade and its constituents. This was based on the number of inhabitants, proportion of GDP and percentage of sales taxes – all these arguments call for such asymmetric positioning.
“Belgrade should be in asymmetric position with reference to all other Serbian municipalities and towns. One of the biggest problems in city financing and in all other municipalities financing lies in the fact that Belgrade is positioned like all other municipalities. As a result, we have the situation in which Belgrade has between 1/5 and 1/4 of Serbian population, 33% of GDP and over 40% of sales taxes, and despite these facts can still be compared to a provincial municipality with 5 to 6 thousand inhabitants. One cannot insist on the symmetry and we all know that there have always been attempts to make artificial one. As consequence, everyone was unhappy and no one gained in the present situation.” (Dušan Bajec)
After enacting the Law on Assets Owned by the Republic of Serbia in 1995, the property of local self-governments in Serbia was transferred to state ownership. All of the costs of managing and maintaining the property remained at the municipal level. The Property Directorate of the Republic of Serbia did not develop an integral property register, so only 5% of the entire state property is accurately processed. Since the data collection was difficult, the study research “Economic Costs of Assets in State Property Used by Towns and Municipalities in the Republic of Serbia” was limited to the City construction land, business facilities, residential real estate, etc. While receiving the requests, the Directorate did not process them as they were coming in but according to its own priorities, and this has to some extent caused the bending of the procedure in obtaining the Directorate’s approval, and on the other hand piling up the unsolved requests from 70 to 80%. After 10 years of implementing this Law, the total damage is around 1.300.000.000 Euros, and the State was deprived of some 2.000 work places per year.
Different opinions were presented concerning the restitution process and the implications it would have on the budget of some Belgrade municipalities, as for some of them the major part of their income lies in the rented business facilities. The urgent need for passing the Law on Local Self-government Property was repeated as the economic growth and efficient functioning of social welfare and local self-government in general depend on granting local self-governments with the possibility to acquire property.
Round Table Attendees:
Nenad Bogdanović, Mayor of the City of Belgrade
Željko Ožegović, SCTM President and President of Novi Beograd Municipality
Zoran Alimpić, Vice-Chairman of the City of Belgrade Assembly
Dušan Bajec, City Council member
Jelena Galić, Economic institute
Zoran Njegovan, Economic institute
Đorđe Staničić, SCTM General Secretary
Branisalav Stipanović, Ministry of Finance
Jelena Jerinić, Law School, Union University
Zlatko Stefanović, Law School, Union University
Mijat Damjanović, MEGA, USAID
Dušan Vasiljević, MEGA, USAID
Snežana Đorđević, Faculty of Political Science
Dejan Milenković, YUCOM
Dušan Damjanović, PALGO Center
Olivera Janković, PALGO Center
Dragan Luković, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia
Aleksandar Stanimirović, Zvezdara Municipality
Branko Borić, Lazarevac Municipality
Danilo Bašić, Palilula Municipality
Dejan Šmigić, Palilula Municipality
Dragana Lukač, Mladenovac Municipality
Duško Vuksanović, City administration
Goran Marković, Voždovac Municipality
Igor Prentić, Barajevo Municipality
Milan Čolić, Čukarica Municipality
Milan Majstorović, Stari grad Municipality
Miloš Kovačević, Savski venac Municipality
Radmilo Belić, Vračar Municipality
Slavica Cicović, Obrenovac Municipality
Slobodan Ignjatov, Čukarica Municipality
Svetomir Jevtić, Grocka Municipality
Vesna Ranđelović, Grocka Municipality
Vojislav Janošević, Surčin Municipality
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