Hennadii Zubko, Vice Prime Minister – Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine, spoke about the priority draft laws for the new decentralisation stage in the Verkhovna Rada Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Government.

Those already registered in the Parliament include:

• “On the Principles of the Administrative-Territorial Structure” No. 8051,

• “On Amendments to the Law “On Regulation of Urban Development Activity” No. 6403,

• “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Establishment, Reorganisation and Liquidation, Naming and Renaming of Local State Administrations” No. 6641,

• “On Service in Local Self-Government Bodies” No. 8369.

According to Hennadii Zubko, it is also necessary to develop and adopt additional draft laws, primarily, regarding standardisation of definition of the subject of approval of the basic level administrative-territorial structure; approval of administrative-territorial structure of rayons; new editions of laws “On Local Self-Government in Ukraine” and “On Local State Administrations”; amendments to the Budget and Tax Codes of Ukraine, etc. It is important to equalise the resource base of local self-government bodies in the exercise of new powers.

It is also the law on local self-government in terms of state supervision, the basic law on the institute of prefects, as well as the law on central executive bodies that concerns territorial subdivisions on the ground and the work of central executive bodies and their communication.

“Our goal is to cover the whole territory of Ukraine by amalgamated hromadas by 2020, which will enable to accelerate economic development of the country. You see how budgets are growing when hromadas are motivated. Therefore, I am convinced that we will be able to do it together,” said Hennadii Zubko.

As reported previously, decentralisation is among the main Government priorities for 2019.