Limits of Europeanisation at the municipal level: evidence from the Republic of Cyprus

ABSTRACT

The Republic of Cyprus is a small EU member-state whose structures reproduce a resilient domestic tradition of increased centralism. As expected, this restricts local government whose actors demonstrate differentiations in their overall role and responsibilities. This work utilises the vertical research dimension of top-down Europeanisation to investigate the influence of European Integration at the Municipal level and the Municipal reactions to it. It adopts a local government comparative perspective to analyse the two latest cohesion policy programmatic periods (2007–2013 and 2014–2020).This work utilises explicit analytical contexts (Europeanisation and historical institutionalism) to deliver a theoretically and empirically informed analysis based on empirical data resulting from two field studies (2013 and 2019). The research results indicate that the effects of Europeanisation and the Municipal reactions to them have been path dependent and moderate at best. It is verified that current decisions reinforce the basic features of the path limiting Municipal role.

KEYWORDS:

• Republic of Cyprus
• Municipalities
• Europeanisation
• mediating factors
• local autonomy
• cohesion policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Notes

1. According to Ongaro (2014), greater attention was focused on realising the goal of fiscal consolidation, causing limitations to the implementation of the administrative reform programs. In this context, the provisions for administrative reform in Cyprus were not fully completed, including the respective provision on the reform of the local government. The latter was met with strong resistance triggered by the special conditions created by the crisis, see Kirlappos (2018).

2. Due to the uninterrupted occupation of a significant part of Cyprus by Turkish troops, currently nine Municipalities and 135 Communities have been displaced to the Southern government controlled territory of the island. The number of the remaining Communities tends to change due to the presence of a number of exceptionally small Communities in terms of population.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andreas Kirlappos

Andreas Kirlappos is an adjunct faculty at the Department of Politics and Governance at the University of Nicosia. He has been appointed as an alternate member of the Independent Expert Group on the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Council of Europe). He has published academic articles and has participated in academic conferences focusing on local government reforms, the EU and local authorities, and austerity and local government.