A Memorandum of cooperation to support local self-government reform in Ukraine has been signed in Warsaw today by Vice Prime Minister – Minister of regional development, construction, and housing and communal services Gennady Zubko and the Minister of foreign affairs of Republic of Poland Grzegorz Schetyna. The document was signed in the framework of the official visit of the President of Ukraine, Petro Posroshenko, to the Republic of Poland.

According to Gennadiy Zubko, thanks to agreements, achieved during the previous meeting, in March of the current year,   Ukraine got support of the Republic of Poland in issues regarding preparation and implementation of local self-government reform in Ukraine, development of legislation based on Polish experience of local self-government reformation, further cooperation between regions of both countries, and between the two states in general.

 “Ukraine is moving in the direction of European integration, and striving to implement a policy, which would comply with European standards, first of all, with the European Charter of Local Self-government. We appreciate the given opportunity to use the experience of municipal consolidation in Europe, and, particularly, in Poland, and apply the best European practices in this sphere in Ukraine”, said Gennadiy Zubko.

The Vice Prime Minister expressed his conviction, that in cooperation with Polish colleagues, Ukraine will not only enrich its experience in systematic transformation and creation of effective institutions, governed by the rule of law and trusted by the public, including local slef-government bodies, but also implement this experience in practice.

The signed document provides, that cooperation in the area of support of local self-government reform in Ukraine will have the format of consultative activities during preparation of draft normative and legal acts on local self-government reformation in Ukraine and educational activities in the area of local self-government reform implementation, particularly, educational and training visits, financed from the state budged of the Republic of Poland, provision of support under mediation of non-governmental organizations.

In order to implement the cooperation, mentioned in the text of the document, a consultative group on local self-government reformation in Ukraine will be created under Minregion. Depending on the tasks, the group will include respective Polish and Ukrainian experts in the fields of constitutional law and local self-government. The leadership in the group will belong to Ukrainian side.

The Memorandum entered into force at the moment of signing.