Management of regional policy in the Czech Republic

In this paper the author characterizes the evolution and the present situation of Czech regional policy. He also deals with management and legislation of the Czech regional policy. The Czech public administration faces up to a lot of problems including management and hierarchic structure of the regional policy. In regional development of the Czech Republic there are basic levels: ? European Union ? secondary legislation related to regional policy; co-fi nancing of the CR development under strict principles; ? Czech Republic ? central administrative authorities; ? Cohesion Regions (NUTS 2) ? regional councils; ? Regions (NUTS 3) ? regional authorities; ? Statistical regions at the level of districts ? regional units for determination of regions with concentrated assistance of the CR; ? Administrative territory of municipalities with expanded agency (so-called municipalities of the 3rd type); ? Administrative territory of so-called municipalities of the 2nd type; ? Micro-regions ? specifi c defi ned association of municipalities oft en with special character; ? Municipalities ? municipal and town authorities; ? Parts of municipalities. The role of the central administration consists in activities in conception and operation of law making and executive authorities in the area of the regional policy and support of regional development including fi nancial resources of the state budget and relevant legislative measures. The objective of the state support of regional development is growth of economic potential of regions, improvement of their competitiveness, balanced development of the regional structure of the CR and reducing inadequate disparities in the level of economic and social development of regions. The role of Cohesion Regions. Cohesion Regions (NUTS 2) were established for coordination and realization of economic and social cohesion policy, above all for using fi nancial resources of the EU structural funds. Regional Councils are authorities of Cohesion Regions and they dispose of appropriate competency. Role of regions consists in conceptual and operational activity of self-governing regional authorities on the area of regional development, especially: ? Coordination of development of their territory and development of areas in their separate agency; ? Conception of internal development policy, processing and implementation of development programs; ? Defi ning of regional development priorities and eff ecting of regional disparities in the territory of the region. The role of municipalities consists in conceptual and operational activity of self-governing authorities of municipalities in the area of municipal development, in initial activity in the area of solution of upon-municipal problems, in defi - nition upon-municipal programs and also in participation in realization of regional programs. In the part of the paper ?Micro-regional level? the author results from outputs of the research project of the Ministry of Interior ?Optimalization of legal and economic environment for development and improvement of operational eff ectiveness of territorial public administration?, which was processed by researchers from Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University in Brno and Institute of public administration and regional development of the Faculty of Management and Economics, Thomas Bata University in Zlin in 2004. He used above all parts of the project processed by him and by Jaroslav Maryáš. For defining territorial administrative units it is oft en operated with certain criterions, e.g. minimal or maximal territory of territorial administrative units, leastwise approximated comparability of units is requested in measure of area, population, event. level of economic, social and cultural development, transport availability etc. Also psychological and sociological arguments (e.g. identifi cation of population with territory where they live) and economic aspects are important. In the process of defi ning units it is necessary to respect fact that territorial administration is a set of legal, regional, economic, political and cultural relations. Creation of elementary micro-regional structure will be probably able to realize at two levels ? lower and higher. For defi nition of higher elementary micro-regional structure related to management of regional development at the lower level of public administration there was very important to respect characteristics of physical geography (such as natural barriers, relief, rivers, wood complex etc.), historical and history-geographical aspects and also micro-regional,cultural and social relations in territory. Th ere was necessary to take into account historically conditioned relations in settlement, e.g. relations of ?natural? centers and their microregions. Th e further criterion was population of municipality, which is one of the basic attributes for establishment of municipality as a center of elementary micro-regional structure acceptable for optimalization of public administration eff ectiveness. On the base of these criterions 603 municipalities (without Prague) were included higher level of elementary micro-regional structure.