European Commission advises Ukraine not to enact urban planning reform law

MOSCOW. Nov 13 (Interfax) - The European Commission has recommended that Ukraine refrain from going ahead with its urban planning reform law, the European Commission's 2013 Communication on EU Enlargement Policy said.

"Ukraine should refrain from enacting the law on urban planning in its current form as it creates integrity risks resulting from delegating excessive control powers in urban planning control from public to private entities, and leads to the disempowerment of local authorities in this sphere," Ukrainian media quoted the European Commission's document as saying.

It also underscored the need to complete the decentralization reform in Ukraine.

"Draft constitutional amendments in particular, aimed at ensuring that decentralization reform is sustainable and irreversible, have not yet been taken forward due to the ban on constitutional revisions during martial law," the report said.

The European Commission believes that the rules of supervision of local authorities' activities, in line with the European Charter of Local Self-Government, have not yet been set up. Work should also continue on granting legal personality to municipalities under public law, based on European practice, it said.

As for fiscal decentralization, the solid local fiscal base therefore needs to be ensured to avoid a disproportionate financial vulnerability of municipalities, the European Commission said.

"This can be done through a fair distribution of personal income tax (PIT) to municipalities where the taxpayers actually reside and a necessary extension of sources of local taxation," it said.

As reported, the European Commission on November 8 recommended initiating EU accession talks with Ukraine. If the European Council opens these talks, work as part of this process may start immediately, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.