Abstract

While the population expected a quantitative improvement in municipal management, there was, from the outset, a fear of greater centralisation. The policy makers aften did not seem up to their tasks through the lack of experience and because of favouritism. This often led to dissension between the sub-municipalities. Centralisation did not improve the services, unless the council produced the necessary creativity. Difficult problems in the amalgamation concerned the shifting of the financial repercussions ofthe amalgamation onto the population, the further construction of the road system and the infrastructure policy, the restructuring of education, the giving of new stimuli to the social policy, and the involvement of the organisational life in policy formation. The balance can turn positive if the municipal administrations are better assisted, if the demographic decline is halted, if more financial support appears, if the participation of the population is increased, and if more pluralism is achieved in socio-cultural and educational matters.