Odessa, 05 JULY 2016, CONTEXT-Prichernomorie -- Today, on July 5 in Odessa, took place the second meeting of the Working Group of the EU Committee of the regions — Ukraine, on the theme of decentralization, the correspondent of IA «Context-Prichernomorie» reports.

The meeting was held in the hotel complex «Odessa» on Gagarin plateau.

The forum, in particular, was attended by the President of the EU Committee of the regions Markku Markkula; First Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine Vyacheslav Nehoda, First Vice-President of the EU Committee of the regions Karl-Heinz Lamberts; Deputy Chairman of the Odessa Regional State Administration Bobrovskaya Salome; Deputy Chairman of the Regional Council Yury Dimchoglo; Chairman of the Kharkiv Regional Council, President of the Ukrainian Association of Local Self-Government «Ukrainian association of district and regional councils» Sergey Chernov; special adviser to the Ukrainian Council on decentralization Daniel Popescu.

As noted by the meeting participants, the event was a direct continuation of the project on the reform of decentralization of power, which implies a number of changes to the laws on different levels.

One of the main objectives of today's meeting, according to the speakers, was to explain the basic concept of reform to the masses. Speakers noted that the opportunities at the local level are currently severely limited by a centralized system of power in our country, when each separate administrative-territorial entity (region), through its territorial communities is directly dependent on government bodies, dominant in one or another sphere. As example was mentioned disposal of funds received as a result of tax collection: all the money collected in this way are not allocated to the urban needs of the local authorities, and are first sent to Kiev, where attached to the state treasury, and only then is the distribution of these funds among all areas in accordance with their needs. It is expected that decentralization would greatly simplify the whole procedure which, according to experts, would make this domain more transparent and protected from corruption.

Also at the event were summed up the results of the work done.

Recall that a program devoted to the decentralization of power in Ukraine was presented to the international community on 30 September 2015. To date, the program has 172 territorial communities composed of settlement, village and local councils throughout Ukraine.