Not one of the 428 municipalities in Croatia wants to merge and only 11 of them have said they would join some of their services, the Jutarnji List daily reported on Monday, adding that the government's plan to abolish 85 municipalities or functionally merge 171 of them is not working despite incentives.

The Finance Ministry issued a public call in September for aid to local government units that decide to merge their services, but after two and a half months, not a single municipality has decided to merge and of the 23 requests to merge their services, the vast majority of them had already done so long before this government reform.

The ministry said that by 21 November, seven local government units applied to merge their services, four applied for a joint administrative department or service, and 12 applied for a joint company or institution.

At the same time, it should be taken into account that some requests were repeated. In the case of the City of Pazin several requests were sent regarding several units and Pazin has combined the services of seven neighbouring municipalities.

The government has already provided 100 million kuna for this year to support those that decide to merge. Still, the vast majority of the money, judging by the response, will remain unspent, and the same amount has been provided for next year as the reform of local government is part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. According to the plan, the government plans to abolish 85 municipalities or functionally merge 171 of them over the next four years.

Where one department head serves several municipalities, the government will co-finance part of their salary for five years based on a specific formula, depending on the number of residents. A joint institution or company would receive 500,000 kuna for their operation and their merger costs would be covered by the government. They would also receive a maximum of 7.5 million kuna for investment.

Of the 428 municipalities in Croatia only 11 applied for functional merging, which in most cases they had done before, the daily said.