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Ladies and Gentlemen,
It was with great pleasure that I accepted the invitation to attend the proceedings of this year's Pancyprian Conference of the Union of Cyprus Communities.
Allow me to take this opportunity to congratulate you on the important work that you are doing, work that is all-important and for which, as the Ministry of Interior and as the Government, we are supporters and helpers. Our common goal is to support the inhabitants of rural, mountainous and marginal areas, to address their problems, but also to create prospects for improving the quality of life.
Allow me to make special mention of the contribution and the essential role played by our occupied communities in preserving the memory and hope for a return to our unforgotten lands.
In order to achieve, dear ones, the goal of stable rural development and improvement of the living standards of our rural population, we need a strong and modernized local government, capable of responding to the modern needs of citizens, but also to the structures of a modern state.
This year's Congress finds us facing the biggest institutional change on the local government map. The reform of local self-government is creating modern conditions. And it is with your important support and creative cooperation that we have achieved it.
We have entered the final stretch. The competent services of the Ministry of Interior, under the Central Advisory Committee, in cooperation with the temporary bodies at the local level of municipalities and provincial self-government organizations, but also in continuous cooperation with you, the Union of Communities, are continuing to prepare for the implementation of the new framework for the operation of local self-government.
As far as the clusters of communities are concerned, organizational charts have already been formulated, after the individual categorization of the clusters. At the same time, the possibility of changing the way the state subsidy is distributed is being considered, so that it acts as a balancing mechanism in terms of financial sustainability.
The Ministry of Interior will support the operation of the new institution of community service clusters, so that they strengthen communities in providing quality services to rural residents. And, as the Prime Minister said, an evaluation of the operation of the clusters - after a period of time - may reveal the need for their transformation into rural municipalities.
As a government, we have stated that we remain committed to the principles underlying the reform, namely financial sustainability, administrative autonomy, staffing of local authorities with appropriate personnel, transparency and decentralisation of powers. At the same time, however, we seek, through packages of legislative amendments, to regulate any practical problems of implementation that exist in existing laws and which have been highlighted in this first year of preparation by all those involved.
Our cooperation with the Associations of Municipalities and Communities, which I would like to describe as excellent, is necessary and a given. For the implementation of reforms in local government to draw experiences and good practices, through our cooperation with the Expertise Centre for Good Governance of the Council of Europe and with the Greek Ministry of Interior, which I would like to thank.
Dear all,
Guided by our firm position to support the countryside and revitalize our mountain communities, as the Ministry of Interior we have been rolling out the implementation of the programme to allocate budget savings for additional projects in the countryside. To create the conditions to attract residents to the countryside and address homelessness, we are proceeding with the re-evaluation of existing housing plans to develop rural, mountainous and disadvantaged communities. At the same time, it is worth mentioning that an effort has been launched to formulate and activate an integrated strategy for affordable housing, in order to formulate pillars of action, using the existing housing policy framework, but also reinforcing it with new plans, in order to formulate immediate, medium and long-term actions for the production of affordable housing, in an integrated manner, with a view to social cohesion
Dear President and members of the Union of Communities,
In closing, I would like to address each and every one of you individually, and again express my thanks for your tireless efforts, in the best interests of the community you represent. We need you, your cooperation, your opinions and your initiatives for action and work for progress and development.
(EF/IS)
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