About us
During almost four decades of its existence, today’s Union of Association of towns and Association of municipalities has changed a few names and organizational forms, although its mission remained the same – advocacy of the interests of local governments.
Ideological and functional precursor of today’s Union was a Union of towns of Socialistic Republic Croatia, founded on May 27th 1971 in a Technical museum building in Zagreb. Foundation assembly consisted of representatives of 20 Croatian municipalities: Bjelovar, Crikvenica, Čakovec, Karlovac, Dubrovnik, Koprivnica, Opatija, Osijek, Pula, Rijeka, Rovinj, Slavonska Požega, Slavonski Brod, Sisak, Split, Šibenik, Varaždin, Vukovar, Zadar and Zagreb. Josip Kolar, then president of Zagreb municipality, was elected as the Union’s first president. At the time of its foundation the Union of towns was defined by its statute as a “self-administered organization of voluntarily associated towns“, and some of the main goals were monitoring the implementation of the constitutional rights of members, consideration of local interest issues important for town development and taking stands on them as well as consolidation of inter-municipal cooperation and solidarity.
The foundation of an organization that assembled towns should be placed in the context of the initiative for constitutional reforms that preceded the SRC Constitution from 1974. Former political and legal system was not familiar with an institution of towns, because the only existing local units were municipalities (which by its size and competence were different from the municipalities we know today). Bearing that in mind, the Union’s desire to ensure greater rights for its members (towns) in the new system which would then allow for greater self-administering freedom is quite understandable.
Indeed, the constitutional reform from 1974 brought changes in the social-political system which then required wider mutual cooperation of local units (municipalities). That need finally resulted in outgrowing of the Union of towns into a new Union of towns and municipalities of Socialistic Republic Croatia, on a conference held on June 12th 1975 in Zadar. For the next decade and a half the Union continued with its basic activities and efforts to improve the constitutional position of its members.
Beginning of the nineties was an extremely difficult period for the Union because of the large number of occupied local units. In spite of not being able to function normally, the focus of the Union’s activities was directed towards participation in mediation of international help for the war stricken parts of the country. Furthermore, parallel with making of an independent state underway was a political-territorial constitution change, which resulted in delivering a law on local self-government in 1993. That law completely changed the political-territorial constitution, in a way that next to municipalities (which experienced considerable changes in size and organization) it allowed for creation of towns and counties. With this Law it was determined that towns and municipalities can, for the purpose of promotion of mutual interests and improvement of cooperation, establish a national union of local self-government units. In accordance with that, the Union changed its name into the Union of towns and municipalities of Croatian Republic led by its president Željko Lužavec. However, the Union consolidated its activities only after the end of the Croatian War of Independence and complete integration of the occupied parts of the country.
Specific needs of towns and, on the other hand, municipalities that are members of the Union conditioned the making of special temporary platforms for articulation of these needs in a form of Town Councils and Municipality Councils. However, these organizational forms within the Union were of short duration due to entry into force of a new Law on local and regional self-government in April 2001. That Law enabled the local and regional self-government units to establish their own interest associations with a possibility of national association status requirement if more than half of the units (municipalities, towns or counties) are associated. Furthermore, that kind of national associations are allowed to join into an umbrella union of local and regional self-government. Since over 70 % of local self-government units were already associated in the present Union of towns and municipalities, the decision to reform the Union in line with the new legal regulations was made. Council of Towns became a national Association of towns and Council of Municipalities a national Association of Municipalities. Based on their founding Assembly’s decisions to associate into an umbrella union held on June 19th 2002 in Zagreb, a Union of Association of towns and Association of municipalities of Croatian Republic, with Božidar Kalmeta as the president, was made. That particular organizational form of the Union has been kept ever since and is still valid today.