About the administrative reform

“Koduvald” – the newspaper of Saue rural municipality published Rivo Noorkõiv’s article titled “The spiral staircase of governing a country”. The author published his opinion on the thesises by the Minister for Regional Affairs on the reform of local governments. The administrative reform is a question of power. The changes in the operating conditions of local government units also mean that corrections are to be made in power relations. The laissez faire attitude towards development, which has dominated until now has led to a situation, where local governments are not able to balance out the politics of the central government and differences in the levels of regional development within the country are enormous. None out of the six proposed models for the rearrangement of local governments will probably be fully put into practice. It is important to come to an agreement on the desired way of organizing local governments, which would not be based on current needs only, but would also look at the bigger picture. The modernization of Estonia needs a holistic state administration reform.