Associations of regions of Ukraine and France to sign strategic cooperation agreement in September
In September, the Ukrainian Association of District and Regional Councils will sign a partnership agreement with the Association of Regions of France (Régions de France), which will mark the development of partnership between the two countries not only at the international, but also at the local level.
Tetiana Yehorova-Lutsenko, President of the Ukrainian Association, Head of the Kharkiv Regional Council, reported this in a comment to Ukrinform.
"We have been fruitfully cooperating with the sister French region of Grand Est for several years. Now we have reached a new level. The president of this region engaged the association that unites all the regions of France and helped us bring our interaction to the national scale. On September 26, we will sign a joint agreement providing for a plan to find a partner for each Ukrainian region as soon as possible," Yehorova-Lutsenko said.
According to her, more than ten heads of district and regional councils of Kherson, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy and other regions of Ukraine will arrive in Strasbourg.
"French people supported Kharkiv region when we needed generators and sewage treatment plants, but now it's time for more global things. Grand Est will also help select regions in their country that will help and cooperate with their Ukrainian counterparts," she explained.
Yehorova-Lutsenko noted that many Ukrainian cities have sister cities in France, such as Paris and Kyiv, Vinnytsia and Nancy, Kharkiv and Strasbourg, but it is more difficult with sister regions.
"Therefore, it is important for us, in addition to establishing a global partnership between the two associations, to hold cross-meetings between the presidents of the French regions the heads of the Ukrainian regions. In this way, we integrate Ukraine into the European Union at the level of local self-government," she noted.
Grand Est is one of the largest, economically developed French regions, located in the northeast of France. It borders on four EU countries. Its administrative center is the city of Strasbourg.
As reported by Ukrinform, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe undertook to support Ukraine in reforming local self-government bodies and achieving the standards of local democracy based on the principles of the European Charter of Local Self-Government.