Volodymyr Hroisman: We offer to pin right of local government to national taxes in Constitution

Vice Prime Minister - Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Volodymyr Hroisman presented today amendments to the Law of Ukraine concerning a local self-governance reform at a conference on decentralization of state power in Ukraine, organized by the Ministry of Regional Development and the Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine.

Organized by the Ministry of Regional Development and the Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine, the event brought together Ambassadors of the European Union, OSCE representatives, COE experts, national experts, Ukrainian MPs and local government representatives from different regions of Ukraine.

Swiss Ambassador to Ukraine Christian Schoenenberger expressed its support to Ukraine in its effort to make the process of decentralization of power. Director of the Democratic Governance Directorate of the COE Secretariat Claudia Luciani stressed the considerable amount of preliminary work on the decentralization carried on recently by the Ukrainian Government together with national and international experts. In her point of view, "it is time to act."

In turn, representative of the Swiss Ministry for Foreign Affairs Adrian Maitre stressed that Switzerland recognizes the willingness of the Ukrainian Government to reform the local government and is ready to provide all possible expert assistance. "Development of local government is that the people of Ukraine need, it empowers local communities. We reaffirm our readiness to pursue appropriate initiatives together with the leadership of Ukraine", he noted.

During his speech on the proposed amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine Volodymyr Hroisman emphasized that the new Government had from the very beginning insisted on a local self-governance reform and decentralization. "We're aware that the system of government that was created especially for the last four years was extremely centralized, it destroyed the local government, destroyed the rights of local communities and people living in the territories in their efforts to live and deal with their issues. This system completely excluded financial independence of any community," he said.

Volodymyr Hroisman underlined that the Government of Ukraine has updated the issue of decentralization and made it perhaps the most important in the context of reforming the state system.

According to him, after the adoption by the Government of a concept of local self-government the Regional Development Ministry in cooperation with Ukrainian and international experts, including representatives of the Republic of Poland who have both theoretical and practical experience in the implementation of a local government reform, worked out amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine. These changes have to become the legal basis for the adoption of a series of laws designed to reform the system of government and to redistribute powers to local communities - cities, towns and villages.

In particular, we are talking about introducing a three-level system of government based on the principles of subsidiarity, where the base level is a community - a city , village or town, which is empowered by the most extensive competence in the organization of life within its territory, as well as a wide level of financial capacity.

"We propose to reinforce the right of local self-government, except local taxes, to a part of national taxes - namely, profit of enterprises and personal income taxes that would be credited to the local budgets.

V. Hroisman underlined that the three-level system of governance involves the formation of district and regional executive bodies elected from among the members according to the results of local elections. Also, instead of regional and district administrations we will have state government representations with limited staff, actually prefects who will perform supervisory and coordinating functions in the region on behalf of the State, they will coordinate state inspections work and actions of local authorities during emergencies.

According to Volodymyr Hroisman, amendments to the Constitution submitted to the Parliamentary Constitutional Committee. They must be considered by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in the fall. He stressed that all the spadework as to legislative changes must be completed by the end of 2014.