Local Autonomy and Territorial Decentralisation in Capital Cities

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to establish criteria for measuring the scope of autonomy city districts have and compare the scope of city district autonomy in the capital cities of Central and Northern Europe. It is important to establish the limits of autonomy city districts can be granted without compromising the values of local self-government established in the European Charter of Local Self-government
(hereafter ‘the Charter’). The measuring is based on an analysis of the legislation of the above countries. The author describes in his article the parameters necessary for estimating the extent of autonomy city districts enjoy and tests them on the sample
capital cities.