Volodymyr Feskov: It is to early to say that Uzhgorod will not be “united”

Today, on September 4, the document-decree of the head of the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration Igor Bondarenko "On Approving the Opinion on Compliance of the Draft Decisions on Voluntary Association of Territorial Communities of the Region with the Constitution and Laws of Ukraine" was published online.

The document confirms the conformity of the unification of 8 villages in Uzhgorod district. However Uzhgorod was not among those villages, which caused indignation among local residents, users of the social network Facebook.

But, as decentralization expert Volodymyr Feskov told Mukachevo.net, it is too early to say that Uzhgorod will not be "united".

"There are no serious prerequisites for that. Conclusions and even the prospective plan are not the final stop in this story. 

This may not sound right, but given the close communication with the surrounding rural communities, it is clear to me that this conversation requires a serious and respected mediator. Because of the public mismanagement in the regional center (unfortunately), the residents of the surrounding villages don’t want to be under the management of city officials and politicians. 

I am sure that no matter what the format of the future Uzhgorod community will be, the surrounding communities have sufficient tools for joint action and development. However, for now, I still hope for an optimistic scenario where some of the surrounding village territorial communities will become part of the city one. It is in the interests of all parties," – Feskov commented.

Volodymyr Feskov added that it should be remembered that the government reserved the right to make sole decisions on communities that demonstrate potential insolvency. Those decisions are made not by regional state administrations, but by the Cabinet of Ministers and Parliament. They have the last say in any scenario, and, according to the expert, they are adequately qualified for that.

"For the time being, I think we should be happy that we finally have the conclusions. It means that the communities have become involved in the process after a long dormancy during Hennadiy Moskal’s term, and that the new RSA has unblocked it on the third month, moving away from unprofessional approaches, and at least without interfering. Which is more than enough for those communities that are ready to take on the responsibility," – Volodymyr said.