A group of MPs registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Draft Law No. 13124 dated 20 March 2025 on amending the Law of Ukraine ‘On Local State Administrations’ and some other legislative acts of Ukraine on reforming the territorial organisation of executive power in Ukraine.

The explanatory note to the Draft Law states that its purpose is ‘to create a legal framework for transforming local state administrations into prefectural-type bodies in order to organise a proportionate system of ensuring legality in the activities of local governments, to ensure coordination of territorial bodies of central executive authorities in the implementation of state policy at the local level, taking into account the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine’.

The authors of the Draft Law recall that the adoption of this law in the first quarter of 2025 is an indicator of the implementation of the Plan for the implementation of the Ukraine Facility 2024–2027 and note that ‘the draft law is aimed solely at fulfilling this indicator, provides for the improvement of existing regulations, not a complete revision of the Law of Ukraine “On Local State Administrations”, does not contain provisions controversial for local self-government and does not interfere with the appointment and dismissal of heads of local state administrations’.

The Association of Ukrainian Cities has already publicly supported the Draft Law.

Fulfilment of this requirement of the Ukraine Facility 2024–2027 was expected to be achieved through the adoption, in second reading, of Draft Law No. 4298 dated 30 October 2020. However, at a meeting of the Committee on the Organisation of State Power, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning held on 21 March, this agenda item was excluded from consideration ‘for further consultations’. This decision has been supported by the Association of Ukrainian Cities and the All-Ukrainian Association of Communities.

With less than a week to go until the end of the first quarter, it looks as if Ukraine will not be able to meet this indicator of the Plan for the implementation of Ukraine Facility 2024–2027 on time.