Belgium: Flemish inter-municipal cooperation under reform

Abstract

Inter-municipal cooperation in Flanders is currently regulated by the framework decree of 6 July 2001, which aimed to drastically renew inter-municipal practice by introducing a full set of reforms. Each of them sprang from one of three guiding principles to which the Flemish government had adhered with regard to inter-municipal cooperation. The first was to legally anchor a variety of inter-municipal forms of cooperation. Second, regardless of its structure, intermunicipal cooperation should be sufficiently supervised by the councils of the municipalities involved. Hence, a number of reforms of the 2001 decree are based on the principle of (sufficient) democratic supervision. The third principle underlying the decree ensures the "purity" of inter-municipal cooperation, meaning it should primarily involve municipalities. The 2001 decree thus excludes the involvement of certain actors in each of its forms of inter-municipal cooperation. How far has the 2001 framework decree reformed the practice of inter-municipal cooperation in Flanders? And, more importantly, how has the local level appraised its reforms? Recently, the Flemish Ministry for Internal Affairs announced that it would answer these questions in an evaluation of the 2001 decree. Once finalised, this evaluation could serve to foster adaptations of the decree. The Flemish government has put itself behind the decree's principles and has - by promise of its Minister of Internal Affairs - stated that it would revise the decree if necessary to reinforce its application (Keulen 2004: 23). In this chapter, we begin the evaluation by answering the questions raised above for the region called Westhoek, an area in the west of Flanders that covers the territory of 18 rather small municipalities. As such, the focus on Westhoek guarantees a critical case study of the 2001 decree. After all, small municipalities specifically benefit from inter-municipal cooperation as a means of providing their citizens a level of service delivery that is equal to their larger counterparts'. A combination of document analysis and interviews with local representatives has allowed us to trace the recent reforms in inter-municipal cooperation in the Westhoek municipalities and report on their local appraisal. We present these findings after describing the reforms introduced by the 2001 framework decree. First, however, we need to review the intergovernmental setting in which the decree was launched. © 2007 Springer.