On September 18, in the city of Tbilisi, under the Eastern Partnership initiative, it was signed a memorandum of understanding between Ukraine, the European Union and the Council of Europe in the framework of the COMUS project. This was announced by Deputy Minister of Culture of Ukraine on European integration Andrii Vitrenko at a briefing at the Government House on 22 September.

"The memorandum is based on a document, political note, prepared as a result of work of the relevant interagency working group chaired by the Ministry of Culture along with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Ministry of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities. The main objectives of the memorandum is to enhance the value of cultural heritage for socio-economic development of towns, social cohesion, democratic processes in times of crisis, duties, powers and responsibilities of local authorities in terms of the decentralization process in Ukraine, the spread of experience of the pilot towns among other Ukrainian towns, mainly in eastern and southern Ukraine, strengthening Eastern European regional partnership," said Andrii Vitrenko.

According to him, activities of the COMUS project in Ukraine have been in progress since 1 January 2015 and will be pursued until June 2017. The selected pilot towns under the applications submitted by electronic voting are two cities: Zhovkva and Lutsk. In addition, Ukraine was asked to identify another pilot town due to the fact that Azerbaijan left the COMUS project.

Andrii Vitrenko emphasised that the ultimate goal of the COMUS project are two fundamental documents that are important for the development of small- and medium-sized towns. The first one defines the average long-term dynamics and rehabilitation of heritage sites, the second - a project of rehabilitation of the very heritage that contains a description of the practical activities relative to the target objects.

The most important thing in the COMUS project, noted the Deputy Minister, is that first we will have the possibility to attract the European partners’ experience in the use of cultural heritage as an important instrument of socio-economic development, because it is vital to forming a strategy plan for the development of small-and medium-sized town.

"The signing of the memorandum on cooperation between Ukraine, the European Union and the Council of Europe is the next step of Ukrainian culture towards the European cultural space," pointed out Andrii Vitrenko.