The new Council of Europe’s Opinion on the draft law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Local State Administrations” and Other Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Reforming Territorial Organisation of Executive Power in Ukraine” was released on 21 February 2024.

The document was prepared by the Centre of Expertise for Good Governance (CEGG), which operates within the secretariat of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. It came in response to a request from the Specialised Parliamentary Committee on Local Self-Government.

The opinion focuses on assessing the compliance of the revised version of the draft law with the European Charter on Local Self-Government, especially in the field of administrative supervision of local authorities’ activities, as well as with the main Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation on this issue.

The Council of Europe’s new Opinion was prepared within the framework of the Programme “Strengthening Good Democratic Governance and Resilience in Ukraine”, implemented under the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine “Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction” 2023-2026.

The opinion contributes to the fundamental review of the system of sub-national representation of the State and introduction of legality supervision over local authorities’ activities, which is back on Ukraine’s policy design agenda. The multi-stakeholder dialogue under facilitation by the Council of Europe first took place in 2018. Since then the CEGG organised and moderated a series of discussions on this matter with national partners, produced several legal opinions and policy advice reports. The recent round of debate took place within the High-Level Dialogue on good democratic governance, launched in November 2022.