Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman proposes to discuss and enshrine at the legislative level new principles of formation of the administrative and territorial structure of Ukraine, which would stimulate the development of territories and maintain a balance of local self-government powers and state control. The Head of Government introduced his vision of changes during the round table meeting on the issues of local self-government reform.

“Administrative and territorial structure. Here it is necessary to establish order, eliminate imperfections, introduce an effective logical system of state administration, when each territorial unit is capable itself,” said Volodymyr Groysman.

According to him, those amalgamated hromadas that got opportunities to develop their territories and infrastructure are an example of success. And now it is necessary to enshrine this process.

What does the Government propose? As explained by the Prime Minister, it is about the formation of a three-level – hromada, rayon, oblast – structure. “An effective self-government system, financial guarantees and formation of the Prefect Institute – namely, state supervision and control. The balance of powers and responsibility must be preserved,” said Volodymyr Groysman.

The effectiveness of self-government system involves the formation of capable councils and executive committees. Financial self-sufficiency envisages consolidation of the principles of omnipresence, subsidiarity and correspondence of powers to available financial resources.

And the prefect will become a representative of state power on the territory, and therefore, will be responsible for coordination and communication of the central and local authorities, implementation of state programmes and state policy on the ground, and will also monitor the compliance of the local government acts with the principles of the Constitution and laws of the country.

“This will guarantee new opportunities and irreversibility of the reform. But it is unacceptable to waste time, including because of the blocking of AH formation by the leaders of rayons and oblasts, only because someone “has cherished” a chair for himself,” said Volodymyr Groysman.