THE EXPERIENCE OF MULTI-STAGE DECENTRALIZATION OF POWER IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES: LESSONS FOR UKRAINE

Abstract

The article is devoted to the decentralization practices of foreign countries, their many years of experience in the system of reforming the state system. Given the similarity of many problems faced by the state authorities of France and Ukraine, as well as the presence of problems specific to our country, an extremely important task is the analysis of world experience in solving them.
 It should be understood that the concept of «decentralization» covers not only the processes of administrative and territorial management, but also political, financial, economic, etc. Accordingly, our hypothesis was that decentralization is not limited to the reorganization of administrative and territorial management. 
 When choosing a country whose lessons for Ukraine we chose for analysis, preference was given to France, since this country has long been considered exemplary in terms of decentralization policy. In addition, it was important for us that Ukraine, when creating a model of public power in the regions, chose the French, or continental, model. The indicative continental model is useful for scientific purposes, as it contains the fundamental principles for the implementation of the reform. Decentralized management, initiated by France, became an example for Ukraine.
 The article analyzes the peculiarities of the decentralization policy in France at several of its stages. The first was characterized by a course of delegation of powers in the field of management and socio-economic development of local self-government bodies, creation of elected bodies at the level of regions. At the same time, at the beginning of the XXI century. the state moves to the next stage, the focus of which is to strengthen the financial independence and potential of territorial communities, for which a number of powers were transferred to the latter. In the 2010s, the emphasis of regional policy shifted towards the stimulation of municipal cooperation and consolidation of regions.
 The assessment of the multi-stage implementation of the decentralization policy in France makes it possible to claim that the administrative-territorial reform of 2020 did not exhaust the political aspects of decentralization in Ukraine, and to predict new stages of the implementation of the decentralization policy in Ukraine.