The city of Vinnytsia has opened a representative office to the European Union, becoming the fourth Ukrainian sub-national administration or organisation to take up an offer to use office space in the European Committee of the Regions (CoR).
Andriy Ocheretny, deputy mayor of Vinnytsia, and
Patrick Molinoz
(FR/PES), chair of the CoR's Commission for Citizenship, Governance,
Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX) and vice-president of the
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, officially inaugurated the office on 30
November at a ceremony attended by Iryna Yefremova, deputy
head of Ukraine's mission to the European Union as well as by: the chair of
the CoR's Ukraine Working Group,
Aleksandra Dulkiewicz
(PL/EPP), mayor of Gdańsk;
Christophe Rouillon
(FR/PES), president of the PES group and mayor of Coulaines;
Niina Ratilainen
(FI/Greens), co-president of the Greens and member of Turku City Council;
Andres Jaadla
(EE/Renew Europe), member of Rakvere City Council.
Mr Ocheretny said:
"Decentralisation has to continue despite any external challenges.
Active international diplomacy of the Ukrainian cities and regions is a
very important aspect of this process. With the support of the European
Committee of the Regions voices of Ukrainian local and regional
authorities can be heard with a new strength now. Vinnytsia city is
honoured to open our liaison office in the Committee of the Regions and
appreciates a lot all the support we have received. We will put all the
efforts for the office to become an effective platform for establishing
and strengthening collaborations with our European partners towards
reconstruction and green transition of Ukraine."
Mr Molinoz said:
"Ukraine's cities and regions will be key in the country's accession to
the European Union. They will the ones implementing EU policies and
legislation on the ground. They will be the ones interacting with
citizens. By opening yet another local Ukrainian representation in the
CoR's premises, we want to make their voice heard. We also want to
support them in lobbying for making the reconstruction of Ukraine and
investments in Ukrainian happening now and last in time! We want to
make this house your house!"
A city in west-central Ukraine roughly 250 kilometres from the current
'contact line' between Ukrainian and Russian forces, Vinnytsia, whose
population was around 370,000 before the war, is now home to 46,000
registered internally displaced people and to many hundreds of businesses
that have moved away from the front line. A major transport hub with strong
food processing, machinery, and textiles sectors, the city sees itself as a
leader in Ukraine's energy transition and believes it is well placed
economically and geographically to attract back Ukrainians refugees and
pull in foreign investments.
Deputy Mayor Ocheretny and Svitlana Yarova, a member of Vinnytsia City
Council, were in Brussels to attend the
Cities and Regions for International Partnerships Forum, co-organised by the European Commission and the CoR in part as a means of
encouraging cities and regions to form partnerships with local and regional
administrations outside the EU. Ms Yarova is also a member of the CoR's
Young Elected Politicians programme, a network of elected politicians aged below 40.
The CoR's offer of office space and the inclusion of Ukrainians in the
Young Elected Politicians programme is part of the CoR's
10-point support package for Ukraine, which aims to prepare Ukraine for membership of the EU as well as to help
Ukraine's recovery and reconstruction in the face of Russia's invasion. The
CoR also serves as the secretariat of the
European Alliance of Cities and Regions for the Reconstruction
of Ukraine, which it co-founded in June 2022.
The
City of Lviv, the region of Dnipropetrovsk, and the All-Ukrainian Association of
Communities already have representative offices in the CoR.