European experience in improving public administration of the strategy for territorial communities' development in Ukraine

Ukraine's aspiration to achieve democratic European standards and its commitment under the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union necessitate implementing new practices in the interaction between government bodies, local selfgovernment bodies, and local residents. These new practices should include instruments of local democracy that have proven successful in European Union countries. In this article, the authors demonstrate that decentralization in Ukraine has already produced numerous success stories through united communities and their implemented projects. The local budgets' growth also evidences the effectiveness of the reform. However, the main feature of decentralization in Ukraine is the change in people's mindset, as they have realized that they can influence the development of their communities better than anyone else. As a result, the reform has shifted to a horizontal plane. Communities no longer wait for decisions from above but engage in dialogue, consult, learn from each other's achievements and mistakes, and move forward. Currently, there are 368 united territorial communities in Ukraine. State support is provided for the voluntary amalgamation of territorial communities. The state offers informational, organizational, methodological, and financial support for voluntarily unifying territorial communities. Developing perspective plans for forming community territories in Ukrainian regions is also part of state support. Regional state administrations develop perspective plans following the Methodology developed by the Ministry of Regional Development, Construction, and Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Following amendments to the Budget Code, all financial preferences provided for newly amalgamated territorial communities are granted upon forming united territorial communities per their perspective plan. The new administrative and territorial structure should serve as the territorial basis for the formation of a decentralized system of territorial governance, ensuring the most effective use of social resources, sustainable economic growth based on the principles of sustainable development, and the improvement of people's living standards. The logic of a systemic approach to administrative and territorial reform requires initiating this process with the reform of the basic level - the territorial communities.