INTER-MUNICIPAL COMMUNITIES AS SEMI-REGIONAL (QUASI) GOVERNMENTS

Abstract

This paper deals with the forms of integrated inter-municipal cooperation in specific European countries that have certain characteristics of regional-level governments. Based on the analysis of different forms of appearance, mutual characteristics of these communities are presented, with a special review of their functional aspects. Bearing in mind that needs for regional planning, coordination of local policies and functioning of regional offices are fulfilled through different institutional solutions, we point out that it is possible to provide a certain institutional and decentralized form of their achievement. Although the entities that are created through specific forms of inter-municipal cooperation cannot be marked as being territory-political, i.e. being institutional regions, that is what they are, from a functional point of view.