2017 is likely to become the last year for a voluntary amalgamation of communities in Ukraine. It was said so by First Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, and Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine Viacheslav Nehoda during the meeting with coordinators of regional Centres of Local Self-Government Development, at which meeting the most urgent issues pertaining to the development of the amalgamated communities in Ukraine were discussed. 

"It is quite probable that 2017 will become the last year for a voluntary amalgamation of communities. I would like to lay an emphasis on the word "probable", Viacheslav Nehoda said. 

He noted that, following the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine of the laws governing the matters of joining of territorial communities and the matters of changing the boundaries of Rayons (Districts) in the course of voluntary amalgamation, the work of amalgamation would be carried out on yet a larger scale. 

Daniel Popescu, Special Adviser to the Government of Ukraine on decentralisation emphasized that the "amalgamation process needed to be completed not later than in the course of two years".