DECENTRALIZATION AND LOCAL AUTONOMY - LOCAL PUBLIC MANAGEMENT DEFINING PRINCIPLES

In the context of multiplication and diversification of the requirements andsocial needs, public administration, together with its authorities needs to operate throughits entire activity to meet and resolve, under the best conditions, the public requirementsand issues. Only by implementing the principles and the rules governing this matter andunder the conditions in which the government deals with public affairs in an immediateand operational manner, efficiency will be ensured in meeting all interests, be theycentral or local. Constitutional principles, decentralization and local autonomy govern andunderlie the formation, organization and functioning of local government, ensuring theinterests and meet local needs, in concordance with the specifics of each administrative-territorial unit. Recognizing the legal personality of the administrative-territorial units and theirright to self administrate in order to satisfy their own needs, the principle ofdecentralization and local autonomy gives the local government the mission to identifyand to implement the optimal solutions for solving specific local administrative problems,and on behalf of the local interests which they represent. On the background of those exposed in the paper, analyzing the principles ofdecentralization and local autonomy, we can say that the exercise of this latter principleis possible only in the presence of the former, the basis for decentralization being theidea of local autonomy.