Financial Autonomy of the Local Self-governments in the Countries of the Visegrad Group in the Context of the European Charter of Local Self-government

Abstract

The authors of the paper aim to provide a comparative insight into the financial autonomy of local self-governments in four Central European countries: Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. The topic is presented through the relevant provisions of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, the only legally binding multilateral treaty in Europe addressing local self-governance. As all the four examined states are parties to the document, the authors used the outputs of its monitoring process to analyze the situation under all the relevant provisions of the Charter, paragraph by paragraph. Considering that certain provisions of the Charter enjoy a superior position compared to the others (core provisions), the authors formulated a hypothesis according to which, in the area of financial autonomy, these core provisions are the most problematic ones in terms of their successful implementation. Using analytical, statistical, and comparative methods, the authors concluded that the hypothesis was confirmed, as most shortcomings were identified in the fields covered by these provisions, meaning that besides the lack of sufficient resources, the lack of ability to influence the amount of these resources is also often present in the studied countries.