Uzhgorod, Mukachevo, Khust, Beregovo and Chop will become united communities

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the bill No. 6466 in the second reading. This law recognizes the cities of regional significance as capable united territorial communities and allows communities to voluntarily join such cities without elections.

This law was long awaited, since without it the cities of regional significance were left out of the decentralization process. At the moment there is no community, which would include such cities. Experts expect that with the adoption of the new law the situation will change dramatically.

As far as Transcarpathia is concerned, there are 5 cities of regional significance in the region. These are Uzhgorod, Mukachevo, Khust, Beregovo and Chop. This means that after the enactment of the law, the residents of of these cities – about 270 thousand people – will automatically become residents of united communities. Thus, together with 75 thousand residents of the six Transcarpathian united communities, almost 345 thousand people, or 27%, will live in the communities. At present, only 6% of the population of Transcarpathian region live in communities. The area of the united communities will grow from the current 4.8% to 6.5% of the total area of the region.

On March 28, at the 31st session of the Beregovo City Council, the deputies supported the issue of initiating a voluntary association of territorial communities in the city of Beregovo.