Municipality of Monaco

Municipality of Monaco
Town hall of the Municipality of Monaco
Flag Coat of arms
Coordinates: 43°43′52.48″N 7°25′11.08″E / 43.7312444°N 7.4197444°E / 43.7312444; 7.4197444
Country	Monaco (city-state)
Government
• Type	Municipality
• Mayor	Georges Marsan
Area
• Land	2 km2 (0.77 sq mi)
Elevation	10 m (33 ft)
Population
• Total	32,020
Postcode	98000

The Municipality of Monaco (French: Commune de Monaco; Monégasque: Cumüna de Mùnegu) is the only administrative division of the Principality of Monaco, and is coterminous with the state as a whole. It only borders France and it is in Europe.

Administration

The municipality is administered in accordance with Part IX (9) of the Constitution of Monaco. The municipality has a communal council made up of 15 members, who can also hold a seat on the National Council.

The minimum age for members of the Communal Council is 21. A little more than 7,000 Monegasque citizens are voters. The electoral system is a simple two-year plurinominal election: each voter has fifteen votes of preference that they can distribute among the competing lists. If a candidate gains more than half the votes in the first round, they are elected. Otherwise, they go to a second round in which the remaining seats are filled in order of vote numbers. The effect of this mechanism is hyper-major,^{[clarification needed]} resulting in a Communal Council by the dominant party of the principality, the Union Monégasque. The term of office is 4 years.

The council elects the mayor of Monaco and the mayor's deputies from its ranks and his deputies. The political custom, however, is that the candidate heading the list which gained the most votes is elected mayor. The current mayor is Georges Marsan, who has been in office since 2003 and has won a third re-election.

The functions of the municipality, active in social, cultural and civil life, do not differ substantially from those of the equivalent bodies in Monaco's neighbouring countries, such as the communes of France and comune of Italy.

History

The ancient territory of the Principality was much larger than the present one, including also the towns of Roccabruna and Menton which, however, arose in the framework of the Italian Risorgimento, passed to France in 1860 leaving the capital, i.e. the Monegasque municipality, as the only commune of the State.

The 1911 constitution divided the old Commune of Monaco into the three municipalities — Monaco City, Monte Carlo and La Condamine — but the prince's government was accused of weakening one of the only democratic institutions in the country; at the time the National Council had extremely limited powers. Because of the controversy, the unified municipality was restored in a 1917 law which took effect the following year. Since then, Monegasque territory has been administratively undivided, and the city districts have only had statistical purposes.

Today, the city hall of Monaco is based in place de la Mairie.

Quarters

Twin towns and sister cities

The Municipality of Monaco is twinned with:

• Ostend, Belgium (1958)
• Lucciana, France (2009)
• Dolceacqua, Italy (2023)

References