Decentralization in the European Union: subsidiarity or crumbling of the public policies?

Résumé du document

Local administrations budgets represented 26% of GDP of the European Union in 2005. Despite this fiscal relevance, the heterogeneity of national legal frameworks has prevented these organizations from coordinating their respective interventions. Nevertheless, a generalized devolution process has gone hand in hand with the supranational integration dynamic, and local governance does now appear as a trend that supposedly favor both and efficiency. Still, the great inequalities among these administrations must be addressed to promote a sound local organization of the Union.

Extraits

[...] In addition, these methods are partly linked with the development of the new public management. Yet, they imply a modification of the administration pattern especially in unitarian States. Indeed, the pertinent local representation of the central administration is challenged by the creation of a direct dialogue between local and central governments bodies. Last, I wish to draw an empirical analysis of the actors and the methods promoted by the local administrations so as to cope with the coordination of their relationships with both national State and the European Union. [...]

[...] This raises two main sets of interrogations : Has the devolution process set a pertinent legal and financial framework in order to drive sound public policies ? How are local administrations associated to the definition and the control of their policies ? Methodology I intend to focus my attention on 3 different issues : First, I want to summarize the evolution of the ideological roots of the devolution process. A special emphasis will also be directed at the transformation of the decentralization policies representations. [...]

[...] The regional policy has been essentially focused on the NUTS 2 administrations ( i.e. regions ) except for several cross-borders initiatives endorsed by NUTS 3 administrations. What are the causes and the guidelines of the devolution process ? Meanwhile, the crisis of the Welfare State is thought to be exacerbated by public policies' lack of efficiency. The growing concern of the assumed costs of public spending has led the States to undertake a critical modernization of both their institutional system and public policies. [...]

[...] Several reforms have reallocated not only the legal relationships but also the financial ones. Meanwhile, the European integration process has forced the local administrations to implement and respect the EU law in crucial fields such as public services, public markets or antitrust laws. Local administrations now tend to prevail in the public investment: as a matter of fact, local administrations represent 72% of the public investment spending in the EU, hence the high relevance of the scrutiny of the enforcement of the E.U law. [...]

[...] The devolution of fiscal competences revealed the economical opportunity of non cooperative politics. For example, the French legislator has authorized since a 1980 law, the local administrations to vote the rate of local taxes. Nonetheless, this kind of fiscal devolution is capped by several maxima increase rates. In addition, any attempt to solve the problem of the inequalities induced by the geographical distribution of fiscal (tax ) bases has not brought any substantial improvement yet. Beyond the question of the inequalities between these local administrations, the problem of their financial relationships with the State ( or the Federal administration ) must be taken in consideration. [...]