Municipal elections stalling Lithuania's regional restructuring - news portal

VILNIUS – Lithuania's government has abandoned the administrative reforms plans, now focusing on reinforcing regional centers that are at different levels of development, although the idea is also raising doubts of inequality, delfi.lt news portal said.

Interior Vice-Minister Giedrius Surplys says that a decision has been taken to drop the plans of administrative reforms before 2020 and work "with the existing structure" in light of the upcoming municipal elections and no final answers provided in current surveys about how Lithuania's regions should be restructured

According to delfi.lt, the Interior Ministry has stepped back from the idea of eliminating the so-called ring-shaped municipalities, an idea first presented at the end of October of 2017. The idea involved scrapping six ring-shaped municipalities, i.e., the municipalities with centers in territories of other municipalities. Such municipalities include Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipeda, Siauliai, Panevezys and Alytus city municipalities.

The county reform plan presented in early November is also no longer considered. The plan was worked out in accordance to the economic territory specialization study drafted for the Economy Ministry by the business consultancy company Strategy Labs. It envisaged forming four functional specialized centers around Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipeda and Siauliai.