ZAGREB, 22 Jan 2022 - The mayor of Rijeka, Social Democrat Marko Filipović, said on Saturday he welcomed any move towards decentralising governance but that he could not comment in greater detail on a proposal by Split Mayor Ivica Puljak for Split, Rijeka and Osijek to be given powers that the capital of Zagreb has.
Asked by Hina if he had discussed the topic with Puljak, Filipović said that he had not and therefore could not comment on it in greater detail but that he definitely welcomed any move leading to the critically necessary decentralisation.
The Rijeka mayor said that any decentralisation of powers had to be accompanied by financial decentralisation to facilitate the exercise of those powers.
Split Mayor Ivica Puljak (Centre party) announced on Friday that the city administration would ask the national parliament to pass a law to enable that city, as well as Rijeka and Osijek, to govern their entire territory.
He explained that that way, those three cities and possibly other cities "would be able to... make order in their territory wherever they wanted, avoiding red tape at the higher levels of government."
Puljak said he had discussed the matter with PM Andrej Plenković during his recent visit to Split, which was their first official meeting after the May 2021 local election, when Puljak was elected mayor.
Puljak said Split-Dalmatia County head Blaženko Boban (HDZ), who also attended the meeting, did not agree with his initiative.
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