Administrative territorial reform takes effect today

Minister of Environmental Protection and Regional Development Artūrs Toms Plešs (AP!): “Today, 43 municipalities, instead of 119, are colouring the map of Latvia. This is a very significant step forward towards much faster development and growth in Latvia. We are currently living in an era in which we can achieve more only by joining forces and cooperating. By bringing together our minds and skills, ideas and resources, we will be able to ensure much more effective governance centred on people, and governance that provides residents with the highest possible quality of services, regardless of where they live. The main objective of the reform is to establish economically much more developed municipalities capable of providing residents with services of comparable quality. This is an important step forward in pooling resources and efforts, thereby creating municipalities as strong socio-economic units capable of attracting investment much more actively and effectively, developing business and ensuring much better living conditions for residents.”

The newly elected municipal councils must adopt a decision on the administrative structure of the municipality of the newly established municipality, as set out in the draft, and carry out the reorganisation accordingly. VARAM calls on municipalities to complete the reorganisation of institutions by the end of 2021.

Following the municipal reform, residential addresses will change, but residents will not need to change their documents specifically for this purpose, as everything will be updated automatically in electronic systems. In other documents, the change can be made when there is another reason to replace the document concerned, for example, when its validity period expires.

In 2021, newly established municipalities will be allocated state budget funding by 1 December in the form of a one-off grant to co-finance the administrative expenses arising from the implementation of the administrative territorial reform; the funding must be used by 31 December 2021.

Under Paragraph 17 of the transitional provisions of the Law on Administrative Territories and Populated Areas, in 2021 the council elected in the municipal elections held after 1 July 2021 must review the binding regulations adopted by the former municipalities forming the municipality and adopt new binding regulations for the municipality. Until the date on which the municipality’s binding regulations enter into force, but no later than 1 June 2022, the binding regulations of the former municipalities forming the municipality will remain in force, as will the municipal services provided under those binding regulations. Accordingly, provisions concerning the amount of fees and other matters will be considered by the council when reviewing the existing regulations and adopting new ones.

More information - https://www.varam.gov.lv/lv/jaunums/sodien-stajas-speka-administrativi-teritoriala-reforma

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varam.gov.lv