In Spain, to talk about examples of municipal mergers during this century, we must look at Galicia. Oza-Cesuras, in A Coruña, was the first to do so, in 2013. In 2016, the current municipality of Cercedo-Cotobade continued, with the particularity of belonging to different regions. The two caused some social uproarwhich initially earned him rejection from society and the political opposition.
But today, the mayor of the municipality of Pontevedra positively values the merger that he himself promoted. In fact, a positive evaluation of the process and emphasizes that this is a subject that “we don’t talk about anymore”. He, in his commune, does not see any “discomfort”, he explains, but he sees many benefits, particularly from an economic point of view: “It was good for both territories, we were able to launch infrastructures and many more services than before, separately” Which, according to him, confirms the electoral approval of 2023.
Today, he said in a conversation with ABC, they have more financing and a higher level of investment achievement. In addition, as reflected in the report, the improvement in the economic situation and the better access to funds allowed non-financial expenditure per inhabitant to increase from 701 euros in 2016 to 1,087 in 2020. “We are a municipality that has the zero debtthat is, with maximum solvency,” he assures.
He also appreciates the report very positively and sees it as a way of explaining possible municipal actions, such as mergers or associations, which “did not exist” when the merger was carried out in 2016. “It would have given us even more certainty to face the path,” says Cubela, who was present at the presentation of the report as a participant in the debate on whether mergers could be the solution. Yessolution to the reduced size of Galician municipalities.
Municipalism of the 21st century
A debate that the Minister of the Presidency, Diego Calvo, who also participated in last Thursday’s presentation, considers “fundamental” to maintain, because “there is no unanimous opinion“, as Ep reports. There are “many forms of collaboration” between city councils, he explained.
Precisely, finding the optimal way to ensure equality of access to services throughout the territory is the motivation behind the study. It will be each council that, voluntarily, will raise the adapted inter-municipal cooperation mechanismswhich can also be associations, groups or agreements for sharing public positions. The Administration has indicated that it is about moving towards a 21st century municipalism, which guarantees the well-being of society in this context of demographic challenge.
