Ukraine remains the only one that has not approved an administrative and territorial structure after its declaration of independence. The only country that is governed by the Soviet norm - the decree of the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada of the USSR dated 1981, said Vyacheslav Nehoda, Deputy Minister of Development of Communities and Territories, at the Forum "Effective local self-government as a gurantee of a democratic and lawful state” in Kramatorsk.

“This fact indicates that we should still adopt the law on the administrative and territorial structure of the state. Will we change it or not (Ed.: administrative and territorial srtucture), this is another question,” the Deputy Minister said.

He noted that voluntary amalgamation of hromadas to some extent is also one of the elements of administrative and territorial structure formation.

“When we discuss this, we are often told that we need to continue the process of voluntary amalgamation of hromadas. That’s ok. And how much time do we need? We have calculated that, within the current pace of hromadas’ amalgamation as in for instance the Zakarpattia Oblast, it will take more than 70 years to complete this process. Who will wait so long? Nobody will,” Vyacheslav Nehoda stressed.

According to him, there are no examples of other countries where the administrative-territorial structure was approved on a voluntary basis.

"This is the function of the state to approve the administrative-territorial structure, define the system of organisation of power at all levels, give powers and then say “there in those parts develop local democracy”, as envisaged by the European Charter of Local Self-Government, and the state will exercise administrative supervision for not violating the Constitution and laws. Yes, this is a difficult political decision. Therefore, we need to discuss these issues as we are doing today in order to reach consensus and approve the administrative and territorial structure,” the Deputy Minister explained.

Vyacheslav Nehoda also emphasised that rayons are needed as sub-regional level of administrative and territorial structure. It is also necessary to clearly define the system of authorities at this level and their powers. The same applies to the oblast level.

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