With almost 3.000 municipalities, Slovakia is among the countries in Europe with most fragmented territorial organisation. In turn, this causes high overheads for the functioning of the local governments, at the same time limiting the possibilities for economies of scale. The weaknesses of the current set up drew the attention of the Slovak Government that requested the Centre of Expertise for Good Governance to prepare a policy advice on strengthening the financial independence of the local and regional governments and enhancing their financial management capacities.

In this context, on 29 and 30 November in Bratislava, the Centre of Expertise is organising a series of discussions between Council of Europe experts, project staff and different Slovak stakeholders such as the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Finance, Association of towns and communities of Slovakia, Union of towns and cities of Slovakia, Association of self-governing regions and the Supreme Audit Office. The aim of the meetings is to identify bottlenecks in the national fiscal decentralisation policy and possibilities for improvements of the local budgetary situation.

The activity is organised in the framework of the Council of Europe – European Union Join Project “Delivering Good Governance in Slovakia – II phase", in cooperation with the implementing partner – MESA10.