Minister of Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine Oleksiy Chernyshov and representatives of the monitoring mission of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe have discussed preliminary outcomes of decentralisation.

The key issues included the necessity of amending the Constitution of Ukraine to codify a new pattern of local self-government; the volume of financial resources of local self-government bodies; power division between government agencies and local self-government bodies of all levels; the mechanism of consultations with local self-government bodies and their all-Ukrainian associations during legislative initiative approval.

«During the decentralization reform in Ukraine a new territorial basis has been formed. It facilitates more efficient activity of local authorities with a high level of institutional autonomy. Financial and property resources have been transferred to municipalities from the rayon level. Local budgets have become more independent on the state budget. For the reform years own incomes have increased fourfold locally», — emphasized Oleksiy Chernyshov.