EU funds propel Ukraine’s decentralisation efforts
Ukraine’s embrace of the West and its effort to align with the EU gained momentum last week when Brussels and Kyiv agreed to a 55 million-euro allocation that will support decentralisation and development of Ukraine’s regional policy. The financing agreement was signed on November 27th by Johannes Hahn, the EU’s commissioner for European neighbourhood policy and enlargement negotiations, and Valerii Pyatnitsky, Ukraine’s acting minister of economic development and trade.
The EU funds will support implementation of the State Regional Development Strategy 2020, which was approved by Ukraine’s government on August 6th. The strategy includes three key objectives: increasing economic competitiveness among regions, improving territorial socio-economic cohesion and creating more effective state governance of regional development.
“By good chance, my first financing agreement with Ukraine is on a subject very close to my heart. As a former commissioner for EU regional policy, I know how crucial this area is to the competitiveness and prosperity of any country,” Hahn said. “With this agreement, the EU commits to support Ukraine’s decentralisation and regional policy reforms. The EU funds will support all three objectives of the Ukrainian State Regional Development Strategy 2020.” Experts said the support of the EU is extremely important.
“First of all, we need money to implement the reform,” Ihor Koliushko, the head of the Centre for Political and Legal Reforms, told SETimes. “We need to do a lot of administrative work, for example, to create the working groups that will be engaged in reform in each region. This is a serious sum of money and the EU aid could help in this question.” According to experts, European politicians understand that Ukraine is greatly in need of decentralisation reform and development of regional policy.
Oleksandr Solontay, an analyst at the Kyiv-based Institute of Political Education, said the emphasis is on “conceptual reform, further development of the country is impossible without it.”
“We don’t have an alternative to decentralisation. Our country is doomed without it. The issue of separating even more territory than Donbass will arise,” Solontay told SETimes. “Europeans support the reform of local government, because they understand that this is the only way to give citizens the feeling that power in this country belongs to them, not some guys on Pechersk Hills,” Solontay said.
Now authorities are united in the desire to reform regional policy and give power to the regions. President Petro Poroshenko said such reforms would “consolidate the specificity of each region in Ukraine.”
“The idea of decentralisation of power that I planned, and you supported, gives us amazing opportunities to take into account local specificities, including matters of faith, historical memory, language, religion, customs, traditions and other expressions of otherness,” Poroshenko said in a speech to the parliament on November 27th. “All of these manifestations should be treated with respect. This also applies to the question of language.”
As Ukraine makes significant progress toward decentralisation, the system of access to public information in the regions is being reformed. Every citizen can now use the public websites of regional or district councils to view any documents or decisions made by local authorities. Information on buyers, sellers and prices paid for land or state property was previously kept secret, but now that data is openly available.
In addition, experts said that for the first time candidates will be able to participate in local elections without the support of large parties or political forces. In small towns across the nation, ordinary citizens and social activists who are making beneficial contributions to local life will be able to become members of district councils or mayors, as they will no longer be impeded by the old system.
“We have a lot of small examples, but in general everything is very chaotic,” Solontay said. “Systemic reform has not happened yet, because we had elections. There are no changes to the constitution, there is no new budget and tax model of local government. Money is centralised and it is a major problem. But constitutional changes are number one in the coalition agreement. All this is very well fixed. And we can understand where we need to move.”
Volodymyr Groysman, the former minister of regional development who is now speaker of the parliament, is a major proponent of decentralisation reform in the government. He pledged that the necessary laws will be adopted in the near future.
“We should make a number of important decisions this month, literally next week,” Groysman told reporters at the parliament on December 2nd. “In particular, this concerns the governance system of decentralisation and approaches toward drafting a new budget, so that territorial communities feel that they could start development in their territories self-sufficiently in 2015.”
Experts agreed with Groysman that these laws should be adopted as soon as possible.
“We have to give all powers to the regions, because the quality of service in hospitals, schools, public issues, shouldn’t depend on the president or the prime minister,” Koliushko said. “It should depend on the local authorities that people can influence, in order to not to gather every 10 years for a revolution.”
What must be done at the local level to ensure that decentralisation efforts are successful? Share your thoughts in the comments section.