Municipalities, towns and counties are seeking decentralisation of the concession granting model, a conference on local resources and concessions, organised by Komunal magazine, was told on Friday.

“We are calling for decentralisation of tasks to make better use of all resources and for intersectoral cooperation to achieve better results and use all the funds made available to us,” the head of the Croatian Association of Counties, Goran Pauk, said.

The head of the Association of Towns, Zeljko Turk, said he shared Pauk’s opinion, adding that local government units should have a greater role in awarding concessions.

“Municipalities, towns and counties must have a greater and more dominant role, because it is us who share life with our citizens. If the central government were more sensitive to this matter, the whole country would be better of,” Turk said.

Croatia has a centralised model of concession granting in which the lion’s share of concession fees goes to the central government.

According to data for 2018, direct state budget revenues from concession fees totalled HRK 664.1 million, while local and regional government units received HRK 111.4 million.

The Minister of Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butkovic, said that maritime concessions mainly fell within the remit of his ministry and that it was important to adopt a law on the maritime domain and seaports as soon as possible.

Butkovic said that the bill was already drafted and would soon be put to public consultation. He said that its purpose was to decentralise as many procedures as possible while increasing responsibility.