French General Code of Local Authorities
In forceI. - When their purpose is to ensure the joint exercise of a competence recognised by law or transferred to their signatories, the agreements concluded between the départements, the Lyon metropolis, the regions, their public establishments, their groupings, the municipalities belonging to the Greater Paris metropolis and the mixed syndicates provide for:
- either the provision of the service and equipment of one of the co-contracting parties to the agreement for the benefit of another of these co-contracting parties;
- or the grouping of the existing services and equipment of each co-contracting party to the agreement within a unified service under the responsibility of only one of these co-contracting parties.
In the case referred to in the second paragraph of this I, the agreement lays down the terms and conditions for the reimbursement, by the beneficiary of the provision of the service, of the operating costs for which it is responsible.
In the case referred to in the third paragraph of this I, the agreement specifies the terms and conditions for the reimbursement of the expenses incurred by the unified service on behalf of the co-contracting parties to the agreement. It also specifies, after consultation with the relevant territorial social committees, the effects on the staff concerned.
The staff of the department made available or of the unified department are placed under the functional authority of the administrative authority for which they carry out their mission.
II. - Agreements concluded between public establishments for inter-municipal cooperation or between communes that are members of the same public establishment for inter-municipal cooperation with their own tax status by virtue of the last paragraph of Article L. 5111-1 are subject to the conditions set out in I of this article. By way of derogation from the first paragraph of the same I, when the purpose of these agreements is to pool the investigation of decisions taken on behalf of the municipality or the State by the mayors of the municipalities that are members of the contracting public establishments, the municipalities concerned are also parties to the agreement.
III. - The départements, the Lyon metropolitan area, and the regions, their public establishments and the mixed syndicates referred to in Article L. 5721-2 to which they belong may, in particular through the creation of a mixed syndicate, set up a unified service whose purpose is to jointly provide functional services. Functional services are defined as territorial administrative or social services that contribute to the exercise of the competences of the local authorities concerned without being directly linked to these competences.
IV. - The conditions for the application of this article are laid down by a decree in the Conseil d'Etat.
