In the context of multiplication and diversification of the requirements and social needs, public administration, together with its authorities needs to operate through its entire activity to meet and resolve, under the best conditions, the public requirements and issues. Only by implementing the principles and the rules governing this matter and under the conditions in which the government deals with public affairs in an immediate and operational manner, efficiency will be ensured in meeting all interests, be they central or local. Constitutional principles, decentralization and local autonomy govern and underlie the formation, organization and functioning of local government, ensuring the interests and meet local needs, in concordance with the specifics of each administrative- territorial unit. Recognizing the legal personality of the administrative-territorial units and their right to self administrate in order to satisfy their own needs, the principle of decentralization and local autonomy gives the local government the mission to identify and to implement the optimal solutions for solving specific local administrative problems, and on behalf of the local interests which they represent. On the background of those exposed in the paper, analyzing the principles of decentralization and local autonomy, we can say that the exercise of this latter principle is possible only in the presence of the former, the basis for decentralization being the idea of local autonomy.