The European Union’s continuing support for decentralisation in Ukraine was confirmed during a meeting between Hennadii Zubko, Vice Prime Minister – Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine, with Johannes Hahn, EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, held on 27 February.

The Vice Prime Minister presented the results and progress made over the 5 years of the reform implementation to the EU Commissioner. For his part, Johannes Hahn noted the significant success of decentralisation in Ukraine, as well as high pace of its implementation.

Hennadii Zubko thanked for the European Commission’s decision to extend U-LEAD with Europe as decentralisation support programme, which testifies to high estimation of the reform by the European Union. He informed that he is currently preparing to sign the agreement on the second phase of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme, in the frames of which the EU support will amount to EUR 50 million.

“I am grateful to the European partners for the systematic support of decentralisation. The second phase of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme should be maximally active, flexible and efficient, since within the new phase the reform, on the one hand, will have many challenges and tasks, and on the other hand, limited time for implementation. The task is to create all legal conditions for holding local elections in 2020 on a new administrative-territorial basis. The second phase of the Programme will mainly focus on regional policy, in particular the introduction of a modern system for monitoring and evaluation of regional development, support of the regional development agencies’ network; improvement of citizens’ access to administrative services; training of hromada leaders; support of innovative infrastructure projects in AHs,” informed Hennadii Zubko.