Oksana Prodan, people’s deputy of Ukraine and representative of the head of the Association of Ukrainian Cities in the Parliament, tells why people’s deputies did not pass the law that would normalise the issue of hromadas’ amalgamation around cities of oblast significance, on 7 December, the Local Self-Governance Day.

Last Friday, the Verkhovna Rada failed to pass the draft law No 6466 on the voluntary accession of territorial communities of villages and rural settlements to the territorial communities of cities of oblast significance. The draft law was supposed to be adopted in the second reading and as a whole. 194 people’s deputies voted for the draft law, 3 voted against, and 25 abstained. 138 deputies did not vote. People’s deputies representing the party of Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who at the same time is the head of the Association of Ukrainian Cities (AUC), were among those who did not vote for the draft law.

This stance was also unexpected because on 4 December the head of the AUC, during his speech at the solemn meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government on the occasion of the Local Self-Governance Day, said: “The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has to urgently pass a package of laws ensuring further development of local self-government”.

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