On the 4th of October 2007 at the EU Information Centre, Sofia, the Foundation for Local Government Reform conducted a discussion on the topic ‘Practices in EU member states with functioning second level of self-government and possibilities for building second level of self-government in Bulgaria’. The discussion was part of the activities under Measure 1, priority 8, strategic objective 1 of the Programme for implementation the Decentralisation Strategy, assigned by the Strategic Planning and Governance Directorate of the Council of Ministers. 

Representatives of the Council of Ministers, Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, regional governors, scientific institutions and NGOs attended the meeting. 

In the framework of the meeting the FLGR team presented the preliminary results of the survey of the European experience on the size of the units of second level of self-government, made a historical reminiscence of administrative and territorial structure of Bulgaria during the last century and using this as a basis formulated proposals for variants of the size of the second level self-government units in Bulgaria. 

The participants categorically supported the necessity of building of a second level of self-government in Bulgaria. With the exception of Finland, there is no commensurable by territory and population EU member state without second level of self-government. 

Nevertheless the discussion showed that at this point among the different represented in the meeting groups there was no common view on whether in Bulgaria there should be two or three levels of administrative and territorial division, how many should be the second level self government units and how big they should be. 

The FLGR team will continue the research and at the end of October 2007 will conduct a new round table where the definitive results of the study will be presented.