Lunter: Proposed Reduction of Self-governing Regions Will Lower Quality of Life

Banska Bystrica, 15 August (TASR) - Reducing the number of self-governing regions would paralyse the functioning of local government for several years and lower the quality of life for people in Slovakia, Banska Bystrica region governor Ondrej Lunter told TASR on Friday, in response to the SNS proposal, which now also has the support of Smer-SD. "Self-governing regions, along with local authorities, are among the few institutions in Slovakia that function properly and manage to fulfill their role. In all critical situations, whether it was the war in Ukraine or COVID, it was the local authorities that supported the state and actively helped citizens," said Lunter. According to him, reducing the number of self-governing regions by half would save a maximum of several tens of millions of euros, not more than 500 million, as presented by the SNS. Lunter added that, in his opinion, more significant savings would be achieved by reforming the 79 district offices, whose competences could be transferred to regional or local authorities, following the example of the Czech Republic. At Thursday's meeting of the coalition council the SNS party proposed reducing the number of self-governing regions from eight to four. The proposed model would follow Slovakia's historical divisions and create four regions: Bratislava, West, Central and East. According to the party, the reform would generate savings of over €500 million by reducing the number of offices and eliminating redundancy. lin/mcs