Cecilia Dalman Eek, Congress Vice-President and President of its Chamber of Regions, participated in Ukraine’s National Forum on Resilience and Good Governance in Kyiv on 20 November 2025. In her address, she highlighted the Congress’s continued support for Ukraine’s reforms in multi-level governance and for strengthening the resilience of local and regional authorities, and outlined the current priorities of co-operation in Ukraine for policy development.
“There is a house of Europe, and today visiting your part of this house, I am particularly impressed with the work Ukraine’s public authorities do for creating trust in democracy and trust in authorities, which is built locally, through direct engagement and understanding of the decision-making process,” underlined the Congress Vice-President.
The Forum brought together more than 800 participants representing Ukraine’s local communities, central, regional and subregional authorities, international organisations, civil society organisations and expert community.
“Discussion during this Forum once again reaffirmed that our country’s resilience is driven by people: both those who joined military forces and those who live and work in Ukrainian local communities. This is our common path and we will walk it together”, - stressed Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine Oleksiy Kuleba.
During her visit to Ukraine, Vice-President Dalman Eek held a series of meetings with key stakeholders. She discussed the role of regional and subregional levels in completing the decentralisation reform with leaders of the Ukrainian Association of Rayon and Oblast Councils – including its President, Tetiana Yehorova-Lutsenko – as well as with Oleksiy Riabykyn, Deputy Minister for Communities and Territories Development.
The Centre of Expertise for Multilevel Governance at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe has implemented co-operation projects in Ukraine since 2010. The on-going support is provided within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine “Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction” for 2023-2026 and the project “Strengthening multilevel governance and local democracy to support Ukraine's recovery.
