On 23–24 September, the first in a series of Region Ready forums was taking place in Zakarpattia: "Cross-Border Cooperation: More Than Just a Capacity-Building Tool!"

The event brought together 140 participants, including representatives of Zakarpattia and other regions engaged in the Region Ready initiative, national institutions, EU partners, municipalities, civil society, academia, experts, and businesses.

The forum was hosted by the Zakarpattia Oblast Military Administration, and jointly organized by the Ministry for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine and U-LEAD with Europe Programme. Expert-wise support was provided by the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy of the Republic of Poland, the OECD, and EU4Reconstruction.

The forum opened on 23 September with remarks from regional leaders, ministry representatives, and U-LEAD with Europe, setting the stage for two days of discussions on strengthening regional implementation capacity and preparing for future participation in EU Cohesion Policy..

"We need to analyse the situation and understand where we want to go. Our strategic cycle spans seven years, and the state must define a scenario — depending on whether the war is ending or is paused, and what our status is regarding EU membership. A great deal depends on these scenarios, so the strategy must be adaptive," said Vitalii Protsenko, Director of the Department for Regional Policy and Reintegration of Territories, Ministry for Recovery, Infrastructure and Transport of Ukraine.

The outcomes of the Forum will contribute to Ukraine’s EU accession process under Chapter 22 "Regional Policy and Coordination of Structural Instruments," as well as to the implementation of the Chapter 22 Master Plan. The involvement of national institutions and EU partners is helping to outline how regional planning and implementation systems should evolve to meet national requirements, support recovery and reconstruction, and gradually integrate the principles, governance mechanisms, and standards of EU Сohesion Policy.

The first Region Ready Forum's focus on cross-border cooperation is no coincidence: Zakarpattia borders the European Union. Participants viewed the experience of Interreg programmes not only as a tool for learning and exchange, but also as a practical mechanism for joint investment, improving service quality, supporting innovation, strengthening territorial cohesion, and building mature, implementation-ready project portfolios.

"There are three very important principles of the Сohesion Policy: the first is coordination — on the national level, on the regional level, and on the local level. We need strong ministries on the national level, and on the regional level we need strong teams — not only the oblast military administration and the council, but also other stakeholders: agencies, companies, the chamber of commerce, NGOs, and civil society organisations," said Andrej Horvat, Deputy Programme Director of U-LEAD with Europe.

The Forum also examined the Ukrainian Carpathians as a shared territorial space linking Zakarpattia with the Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, and Lviv regions, as well as EU member states and candidate countries participating in the Carpathian Initiative. These territories share interconnected environmental and climate risks, limited transport accessibility, demographic challenges, rural and small-town development needs, and a shared natural, cultural, economic, and tourism potential.

On the second day of the Forum, participants presented the results of the thematic working groups and discussed how to translate thematic and territorial findings into a strategy, action plan and project pipeline. The Forum concluded with agreed directions for follow-up work on regional strategy preparation, strengthening implementation capacity, building partnerships and developing regional project pipelines.