Regionalisation in Serbia: Between centralism and regionalism

Abstract

This paper is one of the results of the empirical research of the problem of regionalisation and multiculturality on the territory of Vojvodina. Only the part of gathered data, which concerns the regionalisation of Serbia and the status of Vojvodina, is used. Claiming that a regional state is not only a special form of the complex organization of state authorities, but also a special form of the whole social life, the author tries to define clear and reliable criteria of "good" or "desirable" regionalisation, which would avoid extreme centralism and extreme regionalism. Following the statistical territorial units, according to the standards of the European Union (NUTS) the author recommends the a regional structure, understood as a special form of division of authorities: Serbia as a state or federal unit (NUTS 1) Vojvodina and Kosovo and Metohija as provinces (NUTS 2), regions (NUTS 3) sub-regions (NUTS 4) and municipalities (NUTS 5). In this context, it is suggested that the future Constitution of the Republic of Serbia should define only provinces and municipalities (NUTS 2 and NUTS 5), while for the forming of regions and sub-regions (NUTS 3 and NUTS 4) only the procedure and principles should be given - the rest would be left to spontaneous initiative of potential regional or sub-regional units. Two undesirable things would be avoided: A regionalisation imposed from "above", which could be understood as uncovered centralism, and a regionalism from "bellow" which tries to hide separatism under the mask of regionalisation and which leads not to better functioning and faster development of Serbia, but to disintegration.