Croatia Parties Haggle Over Axing Counties

The junior party in the Croatian government, the Bridge of the Independent Lists, MOST, is continuing to demand reform of local government despite encountering resistance from the leading party, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ.

MOST wants Croatia's current 20 counties and City of Zagreb - a special unit - cut to five to seven regions centred around bigger cities.

MOST says the reform will save money. The wages of only 2,000 people working in the administration of 20 counties amount to 86 million euro annually.

The European Commission meanwhile has estimated that Croatia would save up to 130 million euro a year if it introduced seven regions.

The HDZ opposes axing the 20 counties, however, partly because it holds power in 12 of them, and has ten party members on the position of prefect.

"Counties remain the optimal solution and we have a number of reasons why this is so," the HDZ leader, Tomislav Karamarko, said on Thursday.

Political analysts agree that the system needs some sort of alteration. Davor Gjenero told BIRN that local government requires "systematic and long-term changes.

"This isn't possible in the short term, however, and it wouldn't be wise to throw caution to the winds without proper feasibility studies, without a proper testing of possible effects," he said.

He explained that some counties and municipalities function quite well financially, while others do not and therefore expert analysis is needed.

Gjenero claims the HDZ wants to keep the existing model because "their people are in power in the biggest number of counties" and the current model almost guarantees them sure wins "even before local elections are held".

He concluded that reforms will not be implemented until 2017.