LOCAL AND REGIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT IN UKRAINE AND FRANCE: TERRITORY, AUTHORITY OF REGIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EVOLUTION OF ADMINISTRATIVE-TERRITORIAL MODEL OF UKRAINE

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to highlight the organizational foundations of government and territorial management and self-government in Ukraine and France. The French approach to self-government and decentralization reform is popular among scientists, experts and politicians in Ukraine. The article reveals the potential of introducing prefectural supervision of communities in Ukraine. Among the main methods of research is a comparative approach that most highlights the problems and gaps of regional self-government in Ukraine, which are mostly absent in the countries of the European Union. As the research shows, the French experience of state-building for many European countries is derivative throughout European history. The most decentralized examples of governance, such as the Spanish one, historically took off from the experience of French state-building and innovation in the field of democracy. As the results and progress of the research show, the French experience of regional democracy today is not the only one and has not always been successful and better. In French political and expert circles, there are also discussions about the further democratization of regional self-government within the framework of regionalization trends in Europe. The history of this issue developed in such a way that, under the pressure of new trends, France repeatedly had to move away from stable means and methods of managing territories in the direction of decentralization and democratization of regional policy, namely, the consolidation of regions and the use of new tools for the implementation of regional policy. Not all decentralization reforms of regional and municipal self-government in France are successful, and the French authorities are often looking for new ways to improve policy in the regions. The conclusions are mostly derived from the successful promotion of the decentralization reform in Ukraine, among which a certain stagnation of power reform in Ukraine due to objective internal political and global reasons should be highlighted. Decentralization is among the reforms that are progressing with difficulty so far. Government Draft Law No. 4298 dated 30.10.2020 on amendments to the Law of Ukraine «On Local State Administrations» and some other legislative acts of Ukraine on reforming the territorial organization of executive power in Ukraine, which again attempted to introduce prefectural supervision of local self-government and relevant territorial units of the executive power in districts and regions, often comes under criticism because it does not borrow the European principles of multi-level management, good governance, the principle of subsidiarity and decentralization. In view of the analysis, the author emphasizes that from the list of European national models of state supervision of local self-government, along with the French experience, the Italian and Spanish ones should be singled out, since the latter, in the course of the general decentralization of power and apparatus functions, most implemented the European principles of governance at the national level of state formation. State bodies in the regions and regional self-government in Ukraine still have the problems of the post-Soviet period, which affects the stability of power due to centralism. Today, along with the decentralization approach to governance, there are centralization tendencies. Currently, Ukraine is entering the stage of negotiations on joining the European Union, which stimulates the continuation of reforms on the path of European-style power relations, democratic methods and the introduction of new instruments of regional policy in Ukraine.