According to the authors, the bill aims to strengthen citizen participation in the decision-making process and ensure compliance with the principles of local autonomy. The initiators propose gauging public opinion on the need for additional guarantees of citizen participation in the event of changes to the structure of local public administration and the implementation of reforms.
Two questions were planned to be put to a referendum: whether the dissolution or merger of municipal administrations should be permitted only after approval by the citizens of the relevant localities in a local referendum, and whether the final draft of the local public administration reform should be submitted to a national referendum before the relevant law is adopted.
The government believes that the proposal has a number of legal and practical problems: the proposed date for the referendum does not align with established electoral timelines, and the wording of the questions is insufficiently clear and well-founded. The first question, in the government’s view, is redundant, since the law already provides for consultations with local communities in the context of the voluntary amalgamation of territorial units. The second question effectively amounts to a “referendum on holding another referendum” on the reform of local public administration.
The government also notes that an advisory referendum cannot legally compel parliament to adopt a specific decision in the future. Furthermore, the draft does not specify a source of funding for holding such a vote.
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