Communauté de communes

Communauté de communes in France

Communauté de communes (English: "Community of communes") refers to an association of several communes in France . Comparable to a German administrative community , also an office or an integrated municipality in Lower Saxony , it forms a framework in which communal tasks are performed jointly.

On January 1, 2018, there were exactly 1,000 communautés de communes in France . They largely replaced the SIVOMs .

Legal status

According to the valid provisions of the Code général des collectivités territoriales (CGCT) (dt .: "General law on regional authorities") in the version of 1999, a Communauté de communes is a "public institution of intercommunal cooperation" ( Établissement public de coopération intercommunale ), which is formed by several French municipalities that comprise a contiguous territory without an enclave. Communautés de communes that already existed at the time this provision came into force and that do not comprise a closed territory may continue to exist.

The formation of a new communauté de communes can take place on the initiative of one or more municipal councils of the municipalities involved as well as on the initiative of the representative of the central state (prefect) in the department or departments in which the municipalities concerned are located. In the second case, the approval of the Commission départementale de la coopération intercommunale of the department or departments concerned is required. The new communauté de communes can be created by a decree of the prefect (s) if the municipal councils of at least two thirds of the affected municipalities with at least half of the inhabitants or of at least half of the municipalities with at least two thirds of the inhabitants have approved. A communauté de communes can be formed for an indefinite period or for a limited period of time.

organs

A communauté de communes is led by a conseil communautaire , whose members are elected by the local councils. The distribution of seats is either determined unanimously by an agreement between the municipalities involved, or the same majority of municipal councils that is necessary for the creation of the Communauté de communes can decide on a distribution of seats proportional to the size of the population. In both cases, each parish involved must have at least one and a maximum of half of the members.

Skills and Finances

In any case, the Communauté de communes takes over the competences of the participating municipalities in questions of regional planning and cross-municipal economic development. In addition, it must take on at least one of the competence areas of environmental protection , housing policy , road construction and maintenance and garbage collection as well as construction and maintenance of primary schools and cultural and sports facilities.

The exact transferred competences are decided by the municipal councils of the participating municipalities with the same majority that is required to found the Communauté de communes .

The communautés de communes receive income from property tax , second home tax and trade tax, as well as from other taxes and duties intended to finance the tasks assigned to them.

See also

• Communauté d'agglomération

literature

• Rüdiger von Hülst, André van Montfort: Inter-Municipal Cooperation in Europe , Springer, The Netherlands, 2007, p. 75 ff. ISBN 978-1-4020-5378-8 (English)