On 15 October in Brussels, as part of the European Week of Regions and Cities 2025, a political session titled “Ukraine’s Path to the EU: Municipalities and Partnerships for Cohesion and Growth” took place. The discussion was organized by EasyBusiness experts together with partners: the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), the Recovery and Development Agency, ULEAD with Europe, and the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw).

During the event, Dmytro Lyvch, Executive Director of the NGO EasyBusiness, emphasized that for Ukraine, aligning national regional development policy with the EU’s cohesion policy is a mechanism for strategic, fair, and sustainable recovery.

“Ukraine’s EU accession plan is being implemented against an unprecedented challenge: advancing deep structural reforms while simultaneously managing the country’s recovery after prolonged full-scale Russian aggression. This dual necessity places regional policy—namely Chapter 22 of the accession negotiations—at the center of attention. For Ukraine, regional development is no longer just a policy area; it is a critically important tool of national resilience, long-term territorial cohesion, and effective multi-level governance,” said Dmytro Lyvch.

According to the European Commission’s Enlargement Report 2024, Ukraine has “some level of preparation” and has made “limited progress” in meeting the requirements of Chapter 22: Regional Policy and Coordination of Structural Instruments.

On the one hand, this assessment reflects the reality of reforms under wartime conditions; on the other, it points to the significant amount of practical work still ahead. Chapter 22 primarily requires building strong institutional frameworks, as well as mechanisms for planning, project development and management, and monitoring.

Key barriers

• Fragmentation of the system of regional policy planning documents
• Low capacity to implement strategies in practice, especially during war and recovery
• Weak use of place-based approaches
• Weak multi-level coordination and unclear division of roles between levels of government in the new context, partly due to the unfinished decentralization reform
• Lack of administrative capacity, especially at the local level
• Insufficient funding for regional development
• Lack of an integrated monitoring system

Practical steps already taken

• The State Fund for Regional Development (SFRD) was re-launched in 2025—for the first time since 2022
• The State Strategy for Regional Development was updated and an Action Plan for 2025–2027 was adopted
• Most regions updated their regional development strategies in line with the new state strategy
• Reform of Public Investment Management (PIM) is ongoing
• Participation in Interreg programs has been expanded
• And more

Key benefits regions will gain from implementing Chapter 22 and EU cohesion policy

• Greater strategic autonomy within a clear national framework
• Improved access to EU funds and better use of them
• A stronger role in regional economic transformation
• Greater capacity to design and manage projects
• Tools to address territorial disparities more effectively

Strengthening cohesion is an especially important “effect” of moving toward EU cohesion policy standards, since even before 2022 Ukraine showed higher levels of regional disparities than the average in Central and Eastern Europe.

The European approach to cohesion is not only about funding—it also relies on partnership, community participation, and cross-sector coordination—exactly what Ukraine lacks today.

Systemic changes are needed: from institutional reforms to unified monitoring, capacity development for regions and communities, and applying cohesion policy principles locally.

What EasyBusiness is doing

EasyBusiness is already working on transforming the system—through economic profiling of regions, strengthening communities’ project potential, and developing the concept of regional growth poles.

The EasyBusiness team has also launched the project “Supporting the Modernization of Ukraine’s Regional Policy and Preparation for EU Accession in Line with Chapter 22,” which mirrors a wiiw project titled “Using Reconstruction and EU Accession for Regional Development.” Both projects are supported by the U-LEAD with Europe Programme—Ukraine’s programme for local empowerment, accountability, and development—co-funded by the European Union and its member states Germany, Denmark, France, Poland, and Slovenia.

Modernizing regional policy should become the foundation for fair, strategic, and sustainable recovery and Ukraine’s economic growth.