Intermunicipal Cooperation in Austria Status Quo Developments Alexandra

Inter-municipal Cooperation in Austria Status Quo & Developments Alexandra Schantl, KDZ-Centre for Public Administration, Vienna

Austria Key Information • Austria is a federation of 9 provinces (“Bundesländer”) • 2359 municipalities • Vienna has a special regulation in the constitution and is province (“Bundesland”) and a municipality together

Structure of Municipalities • Municipalities have between less than 100 and more than 1, 6 Mio. (Vienna) inhabitants • Nearly half of the 2357 municipalities have between 1. 000 und 2. 500 inhabitants and 84 % between 500 and 5. 000 • 73 municipalities have more than 10. 000 inhabitants, from these have 7 more than 50. 000; the 2 nd largest city is Graz (230. 000)

Structure of Municipalities • Every municipality must have a municipal council, a managing board and a mayor (Federal Constitution) • The electoral period of the municipal councils is from 5 to 6 years (different legal regulations in each “Bundesland”) • The number of members depends on the number of inhabitants • Mayors are elected by the municipal council, in some provinces directly by the citizens

Own Municipal Competences 1 The self-government is part of the Federal Constitution. The most important topics are: • appointment of the municipal bodies, • appointment of the municipal staff • local public safety administration; local events control; • administration of municipal traffic areas; local traffic police; • crops protection police; • local market police;

Own Municipal Competences 2 • local sanitary police, especially in the field of emergency and first aid services, as well as matters pertaining to deaths and burial; • public decency; • local building police, excluding federal-owned buildings which serve public purposes; local fire control; local development (environmental) planning; • public services for extrajudicial settlement of disputes; • debtors’ sale of goods;

Own Municipal Competences 3 • – – – economic activities like: waste water and waste water Energy (not always) municipal housing leisure facilities The supervisory authority in the provinces can only become active in case of unlawful activities of a municipality.

Delegated Competences Implement and execute duties related to state administration, which are assigned: • elections • plebiscites and referendums • Citizenship issues: municipal records of all persons of Austrian nationality and the register of marriages, births and deaths • domicile registration • protection of water and waterways • safety precautions against diseases • statistical surveys

Inter-municipal Cooperation Status Quo • Long tradition in inter-municipal cooperation • Not fully recorded • Different reasons to co-operate (legal obligation versus voluntary initiatives) • Generally all municipal tasks/services can be carried out inter-municipally

Inter-municipal Cooperation Status Quo • The support of inter-municipal cooperation differs from province to province both in money terms and non-monetary services. • In general only the developement/ establishment and management of an inter -municipal cooperation is public cofinanced, not the cooperation-activities itself.

Cooperation fields • Most inter-communal cooperation in the following areas: – Supply and disposal (e. g. water and waste) – Regional developement and tourism – Sport and leisure infrastructure (swimming pools, sport halls, event centres. . ) – Social services (social welfare associations, retirement homes. . )

Cooperation fields – Schools (elementary and middle schools, residential accomodation for pupils) – Single governing powers areas (municipal housing inspectorate, municipal registry of births, marriages and deaths…) – Internal administrative services like purchases, accounting… – Very limited cooperation in the area of rescue and fire services

Forms of Cooperation • Cooperation form depends on the tasks and duties • Range from informal and non or small institutionalized cooperation until strong/high institutionalized cooperation

Forms of Cooperation Source: Wirth, Matschek: Interkommunale Zusammenarbeit, 2005; KDZ 2011.

Examples www. verwaltungskooperation. at Adventure Swimming Area Frutzau INKOBA

Developments • Increasing awareness of the importance of inter-municipal cooperation • Increasing willingness to cooperate and decreasing competition between the single municipalities • Inter-municipal cooperation or merching of municipalities? • Focus on „city-region“ cooperation

Thank you very much for your attention! Contact: Alexandra Schantl KDZ-Centre for Public Administration Research Tel. +43 1 8923492 -37 Email schantl@kdz. or. at