A local authority is an organization that is officially responsible for all the public services and facilities in a particular area (Collins Dictionary).
The structure of the sub-national governance authority system is different in each European state. Most have two or three levels of sub-national division. The self-governance power varies with the legislative framework in each Member State.
In most cases, at each governance level there are 2 distinct bodies: a Council, endowed by political power, which is elected, and an executive branch consisting in employees (local public servants). Although they work closely together, their roles and activities do no mix.
The European Union has established a classification of territorial units for statistics, known as ‘NUTS’, also used for socioeconomic analyses of the regions and the framing of interventions in the context of EU cohesion policy.
Some of the existing administrative units used for the requirements of the hierarchical NUTS classification are listed in Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003, for example:
- NUTS 1: ‘Gewesten/Régions’ in Belgium; ‘Länder’ in Germany; ‘Continente’, ‘Região dos Açores’ and ‘Região da Madeira’ in Portugal.
- NUTS 2: ‘Provincies/Provinces’ in Belgium; ‘Comunidades y ciudades autónomas’ in Spain; ‘Régions’ in France; ‘Länder’ in Austria.
- NUTS 3: ‘Amtskommuner’ in Denmark; ‘départements’ in France; ‘län’ in Sweden; ‘megyék’ in Hungary; ‘kraje’ in Czechia; ‘oblasti’ in Bulgaria.
A system of local administrative units (LAUs) make the building blocks of NUTS, and comprise the municipalities and communes of the European Union, as subdivisions of the NUTS 3 level.