The authors describe the practice of modernizing the systems of local self-government in the countries of the Baltic region. They show, on the one hand, similarity of the tasks and orientations of this reformation in all the countries of the region (which tasks and orientations are being ever more predetermined by general European standards, by demands the EU makes of its members) and, on the other, their specific character in respective countries or groups of countries: Northern countries; Germany (after the reunification); post-socialist countries (the former Baltic republics of the USSR, and Poland). It is specified that each of the countries of the latter group has passed through two main stages of the reforms: a political, and an administrative stage.