Development of Public Services through the Implementation of European Self-Government Standards in Ukraine

Abstract

As the experiences of the Central and Eastern European countries show, the reforms connected with decentralization were important in agendas of transformation. It must be also stressed that their implementation had not only political impact as formation and empowerment of new territorial authorities was targeted also on the provision of improved public services to citizens according to the European standards such principles of subsidiarity and self-government. The aim of the article is to present the recent attempts for decentralization and local reforms and their impacts in Ukraine in order to indicate achievements and the possibilities of strengthening public services through the implementation of European self-government and public governance standards. The paper explores the process connected with implementation of series of reforms conducted since 2014 in the researched field. It also proves that the acts recently adopted in Ukraine constitute legal basis not only for the distribution of powers between the authorities at various levels of territorial-administrative system, but they are aimed to improve the quality and efficiency of public services.