The territorial-administrative units of the first level that will voluntarily decide to merge will obtain allocations from the state budget for developing infrastructure, increasing local budgets for a period of seven yeasts and other financial stimuli. The Cabinet approved the bill that specifies the voluntary amalgamation procedure for territorial-administrative units of the first level, IPN reports.

According to the Government’s press service, the voluntary amalgamation process will be initiated by the decisions of local councils of the territorial-administrative units of the first level, adopted by a majority of votes of local councilors. The population of the amalgamated territorial-administrative units should be of minimum 3,000 people.

Currently, almost 90% of the territorial-administrative units of the first level have a reduced population, of under 5,000 inhabitants, while 35% of them have fewer than 1,500 inhabitants.