User:DDima/Sandbox/Decentralization
Decentralization in Ukraine refers to the constitutional reform process that is ongoing in Ukraine with regards to the country's regional and local government politics. The process was initiated as part of the coalition agreements made by leading government parties elected to the 8th Verkhovna Rada, or parliament. The process will require an amendment to the Constitution of Ukraine, a constitutional majority of 300 votes.
Decentralization encompasses many political implications for the Ukrainian government. Namely, the ways in which budgets and local taxes are applied and allocated will be under the jurisdiction of the respective local authority instead of the centralized government institutions in the capital Kiev. The current political landscape in Ukraine is highly centralized, often with local governments having little authority over their own jurisdictions.
Background
[edit]Political implications
[edit]Administrative division reform
[edit]The current structure of Ukraine's administrative divisions was inherited from the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, encompassing the old Soviet political structure and government thinking. Many government agencies and local governments often compete for the same authority, causing an overlap of jurisdictions.
| Level of division[1] | Current structure | Total | Proposed changes[2] | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (regions) | autonomous republics | 1 | regions unchanged | 27 |
| oblasts[a] | 24 | |||
| cities with special status[b] | 2 | |||
| 2 (regional subdivisions) | districts[c] | 490 | districts | 120- 150 |
| cities of regional significance[d] | 182 | |||
| districts of special status cities | 14 | |||
| 3 (local communities)[e] | city councils | 454 | communities | 1,400- 1,500 |
| settlement councils[f] | 783 | |||
| village councils | 10,278 |
Proposed regions
[edit]In November 2015, Yuriy Lutsenko, the parliamentary faction leader of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, proposed creating the Kryvyi Rih Oblast (province) as one of Ukraine's first-level administrative regions. The oblast would be named after the city of Kryvyi Rih, currently located in the southwestern portion of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The city has a population of 654,900 (est. 2014), making it the eighth-largest city in the country. It is strategically located in the Kryvbas economic region which specializes in iron ore mining and the steel industry.
References
[edit]- Notes
- ^ Often translated as province
- ^ City municipalities that are administrated as a separate region.
- ^ Normally identification of rural is not used with raions, while for disambiguation districts in cities are identified with those cities.
- ^ Regional municipalities may include cities of oblast or republican (in case of Crimea) significance.
- ^ small municipalities (councils)
- ^ Often times, the identification of "urban" with "settlement" is not used and raises some ambiguity with smaller rural settlements.
- Footnotes
- ^ Regions of Ukraine and their composition. Ukrainian parliament website.
- ^ "Administrative divisions: how they were, are now, and will be". Civil Society Institute (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 14 December 2015.
External links
[edit]- "Official website". Decentralization of Power. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
- "Home page". Civil Society Institute (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 14 December 2015.