Risks and problems of forming united territorial communities in Ukraine

Aim. To determine the specifi cities of uniting territorial communities at the national and regional levels during the process of power decentralization, to generalize the experience of its legal and organizational provisions, the practice of reforming local self-government in the EU member states, to estimate the risks of decentralization in Ukraine in general and in rural area in particular, and to establish the directions of its development at the fi - nal stage. Methods. Monographic, mathematical-statistical, cartographic, abstract-logical, comparative, analytical analysis. Results. The work conducted during the fi rst stage of decentralization reform (2014–2018), was esti- mated by the Council of Europe as the most successful reform in progress in Ukraine. As of January 01, 2015, 85.2 % of territorial communities were located in rural areas, where agriculture is the prevailing kind of the popula- tion’s activity. Thus, power decentralization and reforming local self-governance refers to rural population, fi rst and foremost. However, the study has confi rmed that the implementation of reforming remedies has been restrained, as the main provisions of decentralization have not been enshrined in the Constitution, there are no defi nite plans on developing united communities, it is impossible to overcome the removal of local councils from managing land resources beyond the boundaries of settlements, the reform is being blocked by regional and district state authori- ties. Conclusions. Current system of rural population settlements, characterized by a considerable number of small villages, the specifi city of territorial organization of power (40 % of local councils have less than 1,000 residents) and village and town budgets, subsidized for almost 50 %, are prerequisites of uniting communities as the only way of forming sustainable local self-governance. The centralization of authorities by the executive branch regarding governance over territories, low spreading of local self-governance and absence of land resources in communal ownership, fi nancial limitedness of councils prove that without principal changes in the current position, most ter- ritorial communities will still remain unsustainable in legal, organizational and fi nancial aspects. The experience of implementing decentralization tasks in regions demonstrates that the level of organizational and explanatory work and control over reforming should be enhanced considerably. The issues of regulating the division of mountainous territories and setting higher bonuses and benefi ts, improving budget limits of the communities via taxation system, enhancing the role of cities of regional signifi cance as centers of united territorial communities should be settled at the legislative level. At this stage, the risks of implementing decentralization in Ukraine are as follows: the impos- sibility of completing the plan of implementing the remedies of its second stage without amending the Constitution, unclear mechanisms of implementing the remedies of reforming local self-governance, because regional councils are too politicized, while state regional administrations perform functions, non-relevant for them, and resist; the absence of promising plans of social and economic development of territorial communities restrains the process of substantiating their capability and the terms of implementing decentralization; ignoring the requirements related to needless district councils in cases called «one district – one community»; absence of actions in terms of determining the boundaries of communities or changing the boundaries of districts; absence of work in refl ecting the process of land division by ownership forms in the State Cadaster; untimely solving the problems of human resources for executive bodies of territorial communities and delegating relevant authorities to them.