On 22-23 June the peer review “Sectoral decentralisation in Ukraine” took place in Kyiv with the participation of high officials of some Council of Europe member-states’ and experts. During the two days more than 10 meetings with various groups of national and international stakeholders involved were conducted, including with Members of the Parliament and respective ministries. Based on the finding as a results of these discussions the Council of Europe shall soon deliver a peer review report to the Minregion of Ukraine (as a reform coordinator) containing assessment of the reform progress in the country and recommendations for the next steps.

“First of all we would like to welcome the remarkable progress achieved so far. We admitted many positive changes linked to communities consolidation and incentives of amalgamation process. We consider decentralisation of local finance as a success which enabled to increase local budget revenues by average 42%. These are important steps in the right direction”, noted Daniel Popescu, Special Adviser to the Government of Ukraine on decentralisation (Council of Europe) during the feed-back meeting with the Ministry leadership.

According to the Special Adviser, the peer team learned about different positions concerning Constitutional amendments on decentralisation and recognised the right Government’s position to continue reform implementation in line with the Constitution in force with no delays or without waiting for adoption of the Constitutional reform by the Parliament. “We hope that the political consensus would be reached”, – Daniel Popescu stated.

First Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Municipal Economy of Ukraine Viacheslav Nehoda expressed gratitude to the peer team for the feedback. “In any democratic country wide discussion of population, local self-government and central executive authorities concerning any reform, especially when it concerns Constitutional amendments, is a naturall process. Therefore support of international partners is so important for us: your external opinion about the decentralisation process in Ukraine reflecting its real state excluding any emotional language or information distortions, since it is based on facts only and assessment of on-going processes efficiency”, stressed Viacheslav Nehoda.