Constitutional principles of local government in Ukraine are already set. But in fact the development of local government was only carried out on the level of territorial communities in cities of regional significance (with few exceptions). The vast majority of communities are unable to exercise their powers, because of fragmentation and frankly weak financial base. Thus the system of local government does not meet the current needs of the majority of Ukrainian society.
As of today, about 11.2 thousand of territorial communities were formed in Ukraine. From which 6 thousand of communities have less than 3 thousand residents, including 4.8 thousand communities with population less than 1 thousand and 1.1 thousand communities with bellow 500 residents, most of them have no executive bodies in appropriate village councils, there are no public institutions and utilities etc. Local government in such communities is unable to exercise powers legally provided to them.
On 1 April 2014 the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the Concept of reforming the local self-government and territorial organization of power in Ukraine (hereinafter – the Concept), according to which main tasks of the administrative-territorial reform have been defined:
- ensure the availability and quality of public services;
- achieve optimal distribution of powers among local self-government bodies and executive authority bodies;
- determine reasonable territorial basis for the activities of local self-government bodies and executive authority bodies to ensure availability and adequate quality of public services provided by such bodies;
- create appropriate material, financial and organizational conditions to ensure exercise of its own and delegated powers by local self-government bodies.
To implement the Concept in a part of determining reasonable territorial basis for the activities of local government bodies, the Law of Ukraine “On voluntary unification of communities” was adopted on 5 February 2015. This Law regulates relations arising in the process of voluntary unification of territorial communities of villages, towns and cities.
The aim of the study is the voluntary unification of territorial communities and formation of capable territorial communities in Ukraine.