Abstract
This chapter approaches the experience of inter-municipal cooperation in the metropolitan area corresponding to one of Romania’s largest cities. It shows that, in a national context not yet ready for the notion of metropolitan authority, making metropolitan cooperation work and achieving palpable results in terms of economies of scale and scope in service delivery require the setting up of a very complex structure. This complexity poses challenges in terms of decision-making and inter-sectoral coordination, while at the same time creates favourable premises for the political accountability of inter-municipal cooperation arrangements. This complexity has also proven to be the seed for voluntary bottom-up amalgamation initiatives, although, so far, such initiatives have not reached their goal.
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Notes
- 1.
This case study is based on the analysis of official documents, news stories as well as two interviews with personnel of the Oradea Metropolitan Area’s main organisation, conducted seven years apart in 2009 and 2016.
- 2.
- 3.
It must be noted that two of the current members are the result of the voluntary split-up of municipalities; in one of the cases the split-up occurred after the creation of OMA and both resulting municipalities joined OMA. The rural municipalities members of the OMA are: Biharia, Borș, Cetariu, Girișu de Criș, Ineu, Nojorid, Paleu, Sînmartin, Sîntandrei and Toboliu.
- 4.
All member municipalities have developed their strategic documents within the framework of a project managed by the OMA main organisation, Local Development Strategies in Oradea Metropolitan Area, 2010–2012, funded through the EU structural instruments in Romania, http://zmo.ro/en/index.php/projects/implemented-projects/56-strategii-de-dezvoltare-locala-in-zona-metropolitana-oradea.
- 5.
See the www.referendumoradea.ro website for details in this respect.
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Acknowledgement
Partial data collection for this chapter was financed from the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu research grant LBUS-IRG-2016-02.
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Stănuș, C. (2018). The Architecture of a Complex System: The Oradea Metropolitan Area in Romania. In: Teles, F., Swianiewicz, P. (eds) Inter-Municipal Cooperation in Europe. Governance and Public Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62819-6_16
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