Municipalities carry out their tasks in a limited area, but for various reasons they cooperate with other municipalities, both neighbouring and/or distant, within the same country or in other countries. Although they operate within different national administrative systems, municipalities face similar problems and have similar interests - cooperation amongst them offers new opportunities for development in different areas.
International cooperation between local authorities has a long tradition in Europe. Slovenian municipalities started to cooperate more intensively with foreign ones already before EU accession, and since then cooperation has intensified. We started to explore inter-territorial cooperation between the municipalities of Medvode and Crest because this area hadn’t been explored before. The objectives of the thesis were to analyse the legal regulation of inter-municipal cooperation, with a focus on inter-territorial cooperation, and to carry out a case study to determine the extent and intensity of cooperation.
Based on the research carried out, we conclude that the cooperation between the municipalities of Medvode and Crest has long tradition. The two municipalities cooperate most in the field of culture, followed by sport, education, youth and finally tourism. At present, cooperation between the two municipalities is not increasing, which can be attributed to the coronavirus epidemic. The main problem in the cooperation between the Municipality of Medvode and the Municipality of Crest is a complex preparation of project documentation, which is important for the cooperation or management of EU-supported projects. The two municipalities are keen to continue their successful cooperation, which is also supported by the citizens of the Municipality of Medvode. Based on this findings, further research can be directed in different directions, for example the analysis of the reasons for the choice of the particular form of cooperation and the success factors of different forms of cooperation.
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