Durmish Guri, Director Projects and Programmes at the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR)
Ivan Slobodianyk, Executive Director of the All-Ukrainian Association of Communities (VAG)
Oleksandr Korinnyi, Chairman of the All-Ukrainian Association of Amalgamated Territorial Communities (AATC)
Tetiana Yehorova-Lutsenko, President of Ukrainian Association of District and Regional Councils (UAROR), Chair of Kharkiv Regional Council
 

When the Nova Kakhovka dam collapsed, cutting off Apostolove's water supply, support came not only from Kyiv or Brussels, but from a French port city 3,000 kilometers away. Today, La Rochelle and Apostolove are training farmers to build straw, wiring dams for solar power, and proving that a municipal partnership can be as concrete and mutual, as it is symbolic. Their story is one of several hundreds of partnerships now underway between Ukrainian and other European Municipalities. According to the geography of friendship map there are 2.800 contacts of Ukrainian municipalities with international partners worldwide. Municipal cooperation has been a key driver of Europe's development, integration, and territorial cohesion. Twinning between towns emerged after the Second World War as one of the continent's strongest instruments for reconciliation and mutual understanding, forging ties that outlasted political cycles. Today it carries a broader purpose: rarely limited to signing an agreement, a partnership takes shape through joint projects, technical assistance and shared expertise across mobility, climate, economic development, culture and public services, connecting local governments that want to solve similar challenges together.

This matters more than ever for Ukraine. An estimated 70% of the EU legislation (acquis) is implemented at local level, so Ukraine's path to EU membership runs largely through its municipalities. Direct cooperation between Ukrainian and European local governments is a practical accelerator of decentralisation, reconstruction and EU integration alike, the spirit in which Bridges of Trust (BoT) Community - facilitated by the European Partnership Hub (EPH) - is built.

 

From a Project to a Pan-European Community

The Bridges of Trust Community supported by U-LEAD with Europe programme[1], encompassed nowadays 50 actors from 30 countries, including all four Ukrainian Local Government Associations, namely the Association of Ukrainian Cities (AUC), the Ukrainian Association of District and Regional Councils (UAROR), the Association of Amalgamated Territorial Communities (AATC) and the All-Ukrainian Association of Communities (VAG).

Bridges of Trust initiative was established by U-LEAD with Europe in 2021 and strengthened as a project jointly implemented by the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) and the Association of Ukrainian Cities (AUC), to advance decentralisation and reform in Ukraine hand in hand with EU peers. The initial focus of the project was technical: pairing ten Ukrainian municipalities with counterparts in Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for mutual learning and capacity building.

The full-scale invasion of February 2022 pushed BoT initiative into a new phase mobilising European national local self-government associations to broker 30 new partnerships and becoming a “BoT Community”. Municipalities already matched pivoted almost overnight, channeling humanitarian aid to their Ukrainian partners. Mayors became far more directly engaged, and partnerships multiplied. By November 2022, in the framework of Bridges of Trust and the support of U-LEAD with Europe, 30 Ukrainian municipalities across ten regions had partnered with 30 EU counterparts in nine countries, generating 48 joint projects and training over 530 local officials on topics ranging from waste management and education to public services and sustainable development. Seven online Solidarity Forums raised awareness of the challenges facing Ukrainian local governments, a format still used today by AUC, local government associations from other European countries and CEMR to mobilise more European mayors and municipal experts to engage in cooperation with Ukraine.

By October 2024, BoT had outgrown its shape as a bilateral matching project. At the annual gathering in Brussels, gathering over 40 partner representatives, and later at the CEMR Leaders' Summit in Karlsruhe, the Bridges of Trust Community was formally launched: a long-term network open to actors working together to expand the number of municipal partnerships with Ukraine and to foster impactful municipal cooperation. It now runs on a steady rhythm of gatherings for coordination, knowledge-sharing and joint activity across countries, to better accommodate the growing needs of Ukrainian municipalities. Three social media channels, on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook, showcase partnerships and best practices.

 

The Ukraine Recovery Conferences

The members of the European Alliance of Cities and Regions for the Reconstruction of Ukraine led by the European Committee of the Regions have used each successive Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) to push local and regional governments further into the center of reconstruction policy. A milestone was at URC 2024 in Berlin, where the Matchmaking Platform was launched to help municipalities identify and initiate new partnerships; by now it counts more than 700 registered users.

That trajectory culminated at URC 2025 in Rome, where CEMR Secretary General Fabrizio Rossi, together with the European Alliance, announced the European Partnership Hub, a direct response to the Berlin Call to Action[2] from URC 2024. Hosted by CEMR and backed by the EU and its member states through U-LEAD with Europe, the EPH became the BoT Community's operational secretariat (EPHS), a one-stop-shop coordinating actors, creating synergies and promoting joint activities.

At URC 2026 in Poland, the EPH hosted a dedicated stand featuring all Community actors' activities and dozens of case studies, which provided an ideal opportunity to promote the newly launched Bridges of Trust Partnerships Award, an initiative recognising outstanding partnerships as "BoT Ambassadors" with a full year of accelerated support and visibility.

 

A Growing Network, Shared Objectives

Today the BoT Community counts around 50 actors from 30 countries: local government associations, local and regional governments, all four all-Ukrainian Associations, partner organisations, networks and EU institutions, each working independently yet coordinating through the Community. In 2025, the EPH and AUC together with implementing partners in Italy, Malta, Norway, Finland, France, Latvia, Portugal and Spain have embarked in a journey to establish up to 60 new municipal partnerships, focusing on smaller Ukrainian municipalities without international partners yet. Activities include Solidarity Forums, online meetings, trainings, study visits, and internships with the aim of establishing impactful and formalised cooperation.

From the first ten pilot partnerships to today's continent-wide Bridges of Trust Community, the joint objectives have stayed constant: decentralisation, recovery and reconstruction, EU integration, and ever more sustainable, resilient partnerships. What began as an U-LEAD initiative is now a living demonstration that cohesion in Europe is built through everyday cooperation between towns and cities, and that these are win-win partnerships, in which European municipalities learn as much from Ukrainian resilience as Ukraine gains from EU know-how.

Looking ahead, the BoT Community will grow to meet municipalities' evolving needs: stronger coordination between actors, deeper tools and gatherings across its 50 members in 30 countries, and clearer paths for new partnerships to become lasting, formalised cooperation. BoT Ambassadors will keep serving as role models, inspiring other municipalities. As Ukraine's EU accession advances, municipal cooperation will only grow more central to that path. By the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2027 in Estonia, the ambition is to show both scale and depth, proof that today's partnerships can become sustainable, and that solidarity between towns keeps translating into lasting institutional change.