Lithuania shares regional development and local governance experience with Ukrainian officials

Deputy Minister Chuprynenko also briefly presented reforms in the areas of regional policy and local governance taking place in Ukraine currently, told about the first steps of the new Ukrainian Government in seeking to decentralize administration and to impart greater autonomy to the regional and local bodies of governance. He underlined that Ukraine feels strong support of Lithuania. The Lithuanian experience is very important in the process of passing from the Soviet system to the European Union (EU), as Ukraine is implementing similar reforms as Lithuania did some years ago.

The Ukrainian guest was particularly interested in the Lithuanian experience in establishing housing cooperatives and organizing residential renovation, improving effectiveness in energy consumption, thus seeking to diminish the dependence of Ukraine from the gas supply from Russia.

Deputy Ministers Morkūnas and Chuprynenko discussed possibilities of cooperation in exchanging experience between the Lithuanian Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine. It was agreed to look for the ways how Lithuania’s experts could provide consultative assistance to their Ukrainian counterparts on establishing the complex system of residential housing renovation and modernization of the environment, also to seek possibilities of passing the experience of the Lithuanian experts in the areas of regional development and decentralization of administration and, possibly, necessary information to the Ukrainian colleagues.

The meeting was also attended by Director of the ministry’s Public Governance Policy Department Paulius Skardžius, Director of International Cooperation Department Kęstutis Bučinskas and Head of Regional Policy Strategic Coordination Division of Public Governance Policy Department Gediminas Česonis.

Deputy Minister Chuprynenko visited Lithuania together with other Ukrainian deputy ministers in charge of EU integration issues. During the visit to Lithuania on 4-7 February, fourteen high-ranking officials of Ukraine met with representatives of the Lithuanian ministries and other institutions, expanded their knowledge on the processes of EU integration and got acquainted with experience of accepting EU legal norms and standards.