“The amendments to the law on inter-municipal co-operation (IMC) in Ukraine align with citizens' expectations, particularly those living in metropolitan areas. We welcome the introduction of a new form of IMC aimed at promoting closer collaboration between municipalities,” underlined Congress Director Claudia Luciani, opening a dedicated presentation of amendments in Kyiv on 12 May 2025, jointly with First Vice-Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine Oleksandr Kornienko.

This week, Ukraine’s Parliament is set to vote on the draft law aimed at streamlining the existing legal framework and practices for its implementation, particularly under martial law. In addition to addressing co-operation within metropolitan areas, the amendments propose simplifying procedures for establishing and terminating co-operation projects. The new legal initiative takes into account extensive consultancy, provided to the Parliament in 2023-2024 by the Centre of Expertise for Multilevel Governance (CEMG) at the Congress within its Programme “Strengthening Good Democratic Governance and Resilience in Ukraine”, which came to an end in March 2025.

“The Council of Europe has supported Ukraine in strengthening IMC for more than a decade through diverse types of assistance starting from elaborating a set of methodological recommendations to providing grant awards to selected projects or analysing the current practice of such co-operation,” noted Claudia Luciani while reaffirming that the CEMG stands ready to continue its targeted assistance within a new Project “Strengthening multilevel governance and local democracy to support Ukraine's recovery”, implemented by the CEMG under the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine “Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction”.