EU integration is 'critical' and 'significant stimulus' for Ukraine's cities and regions

Ukrainian local and regional authorities, which have been widely praised for their resilience since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, have said that decentralisation, training programmes, international partnerships and deeper understanding of EU processes will be critical to their development as they prepare for Ukraine's accession into the European Union. 

However, at a meeting on 21 October of the Working Group on Ukraine established by the European Committee of the Regions, representatives of Ukrainian cities and regions said that their most immediate need this winter is to source enough generators to cope with the destruction of the electricity grid caused by Russian attacks. 

The scale of the daily threat posed by Russia was underscored by the president of the Council of Europe's Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, Marc Cools, who said that Russia's actions "almost qualify as cultural genocide" and urged local and regional leaders in the EU to "lobby… to ensure that there really is strong support and that Ukraine has the means it needs to defend itself and secure victory". 

The meeting, which was chaired by Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, mayor of Gdańsk, focused on the state of play on Ukraine's EU accession from the perspective of cities and regions. Oleksii Riabykin, Ukraine's newly appointed Deputy Minister for Communities and Territorial Development, described European integration as "a significant stimulus for the development of cities and regions", and said that it was "critically important" that the EU's next long-term budget includes resources for Ukrainian regions, particularly through cross-border, inter-regional, and transnational cooperation programmes.

Decentralisation and EU integration

The EU's enlargement agenda with Ukraine prominently features decentralisation and the theme was central to the discussions at the meeting. Vitalii Bezghin, Chair of the Verkhovna Rada's Parliamentary Sub-Committee on Administrative and Territorial Organisation of State Power, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning, said that "decentralisation and a strong multilevel governance are priorities of ours".

Ukraine began wide-ranging decentralisation reforms in 2014, which were highly popular and widely seen as critical to Ukraine's ability to withstand Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Deputy Minister Riabykin described decentralisation as “the most successful or one of the most successful reforms in our country”.

The invasion led, however, to to the imposition of martial law and consequently to the suspension of the reforms. Representatives of four Ukrainian territorial associations at the meeting – the Association of Ukrainian Cities, the Ukrainian Association of Districts and Regional Councils, the Association of Amalgamated Territorial Communities, and the All-Ukrainian Association of Communities – said they were pressing for legislation to be completed and adopted to enable further decentralisation reforms, at both the regional and local level. Current draft legislation, they said, does not delineate clearly enough the powers of central and local authorities.

There were also calls for the Ukrainian government to develop a strategy for the reinforcement of local self-government, to provide additional funds to local and regional authorities, and to adopt or revise several dozen pieces of legislation, many of them linked to Ukraine's integration into EU programmes.

Closer ties with the EU are being reflected in how local and regional authorities deal with EU matters in their everyday work. Deputy Minister Riabykin said that each of the Ukrainian Regional Military (State) Administrations will now have a Deputy Head responsible for European integration. Tetiana Yehorova-Lutsenko, who is president of the Ukrainian Association of Local and Regional Councils as well as chair of Kharkiv Regional Council, said that regional councils have decided to create European integration hubs for their councillors.

Training and partnerships

Ukrainian representatives emphasised, however, that councillors will need extra support to gain knowledge and experience of how governance processes function in the EU, as well as of EU policies such as regional development and the Common Agricultural Policy.

The European Committee of the Regions has responded to the requests from Ukrainian associations for capacity-building support by agreeing to launch the pilot project Training and Internship Programme Support for Ukrainian Municipalities (TIPS4UA). TIPS4UA was initiated by the European Alliance of Cities and Regions for Reconstruction of Ukraine and is being implemented by the European Committee of Regions (CoR) in cooperation with U-LEAD with Europe and implementing partners in the EU. Its aim is to help Ukrainian municipalities’ staff and local leaders implement recovery, reconstruction and modernisation projects. U-LEAD with Europe told the members of the Working Group on Ukraine that the pilot phase should start next year.

The promotion of peer-to-peer cooperation is a key aspect of the work of the European Alliance of Cities and Regions for the Reconstruction of Ukraine, which was created in June 2022. The European Committee of the Regions serves as the secretariat of the Alliance.

The number of EU and Ukrainian regions and cities that have established partnerships has risen significantly since February 2022, and Ukrainian political leaders at all levels – including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – have repeatedly expressed the hope that every Ukrainian town, city or region will find a partner in the EU.

Patrick Molinoz, Vice-President of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region and Chair of the CoR's Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX), said that the French Congress of Mayors has invited the mayors of some of Ukraine's largest cities and the presidents of Ukraine's territorial associations to its plenary on 19 November, where French communities will have an opportunity to identify how they can establish partnerships with their Ukrainian counterparts. Mr Molinoz, whose region recently established a partnership with the region of Vinnytsia, has been involved in organising the event.

The meeting of the Working Group on Ukraine was the last in the current mandate of the European Committee of the Regions, which ends in January. The event can be re-watched here.

Quotes: 

Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, Mayor of Gdańsk and Chair of the Working Group on Ukraine: "In this Working Group, our primary objective has been to support Ukrainian local and regional authorities in their ongoing European reform processes. Particularly through targeted peer-to-peer exchanges and capacity-building programs. We have continuously supported the decentralisation and public administration reforms in Ukraine, sharing best practices and policy advice to enhance local and regional governance." 

Oleksii Riabykin, Deputy Minister for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine: "Ukraine is actively working on deepening relations with the European Committee of the Regions through the creation of a Joint Consultative Committee.

Marc Cools, President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, Council of Europe: "The Congress, the Council of Europe, as a whole, fully supports Ukraine. We have done so on numerous occasions, since 2014, through statements, but not only that. We did so again [in the Congress plenary session of 15-16 October 2024] through a very clear statement condemning all the abuses committed by the Russian Federation, but also addressing a point that is what could almost be described as cultural genocide, a point raised by Russia's desire to destroy all of Ukrainian history, all of Ukrainian culture."

Vitalii Bezghin, Member of the Verkhovna Rada, Chair of the Parliamentary Sub-committee on Administrative and Territorial Organisation and Local Self-Government:  "When we are talking about a European future, I think that Ukraine is the first country in the world which is realising its institutional reforms due to European integration in a period of full-scale aggression. And of course, when we are talking about reforms, decentralisation and a strong multi-level governance is our priority."