A proposal for a radical decentralisation of Ukraine will be sent to the Ukrainian parliament next Thursday (15 May), the first major step towards satisfying internationally scrutinised agreements to reform Ukraine’s constitution. Repeated calls by Russia and separatist forces in eastern Ukraine for Ukraine to become a federal state have turned decentralisation into the most politically sensitive element of the constitutional reforms.

During a meeting with European Union officials on Tuesday (6 May), one of the principal advisers to the commission that is drafting the proposal, Anatoliy Tkachuk, said that Ukraine is “a highly centralised state” that suffered from a poor distribution of power “horizontally” and a lack of support for local government. The 15-member commission was appointed by the Ukrainian parliament on 4 March to draft amendments to the constitution.

Tkachuk said that the experts’ proposals focus on consolidating and strengthening municipalities and districts and would pare back the powers of local branches of state institutions, which typically have more influence over local policy than local governments.

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By contrast, he said, the notion of federalisation would grant greater autonomy to Ukraine’s regions and would “create a layer of oligarchic activity that would continue business as usual”. Tkachuk said that the effects of over-centralisation were evident in the ease with which separatists have seized government buildings in a dozen or so towns and cities in eastern Ukraine.

The other blocks of constitutional changes considered by the commission relate to the political system and to the judiciary. Ihor Koliushko, another of the commission’s expert advisers, said that there was “an almost total consensus” in Ukraine that there is no real alternative to a mixed semi-presidential form of government. Ukrainians did not want a pure presidential system, while Ukraine’s parties were too mistrusted for Ukraine to move to a parliamentary system, and “nor do we have an independent and authoritative judiciary” to act as an effective counterbalance to parliament.

Debate about overhauling governance in Ukraine long pre-dates the current crisis, but is now embedded in the international process of trying to reduce tensions in eastern Ukraine following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Four-way talks on 17 April between Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the EU called for constitutional reforms.

Candidates approve

Koliushko said that the leading candidates for the presidency, Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, had both voiced general backing for decentralisation. Koliushko said that he hoped that parliament would give the proposal a first reading before the first round of the presidential election on 25 May. It would then be sent for appraisal by Ukraine’s constitutional court and the Council of Europe. The aim would be for amendments to be integrated in July, with a final vote in early September.

He said the process and timeline was intended to prevent the incoming president being able to “customise the constitution”. The intensity of the presidential battle was indicated on Tuesday when Tymoshenko stated that she was willing to lead a “third stage of the revolution” if she did not win the presidential election. “I simply know these people,” she explained, referring to Poroshenko and his team.

Brussels meetings

The Ukrainian cabinet will visit Brussels on Tuesday (13 May) to meet the college of European commissioners. It is hoped that as many ministers and commissioners as possible will attend the meeting. The Commission said on Monday (5 May) that the aim is “to make sure that Ukraine has all the support it needs, in the short and long term, to undertake the political and economic reforms that are necessary”.

José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission’s president, is also hoping to hold similar meetings with the Moldovan government on Thursday (15 May) and with the Georgian government on 21 May. Those meetings have not, however, been confirmed.

The meetings are a part of broader effort by the European Union and its member states to show support for the three countries, all of which have signed association agreements with the EU.

Issues related to Ukraine’s constitution and governance were on the agenda for a meeting of the Council of Europe on Tuesday (6 May) attended by 30 European foreign ministers, including Russia’s Sergei Lavrov and Ukraine’s Andrii Deshchytsia.

In a commentary published on Tuesday, Germany’s foreign minister, Franz-Walter Steinmeier, said that “broad consultations on constitutional reform must be held to a tight timetable with the goal of actively involving all regions and social groups, and producing a viable consensus”. Tkachuk said that the commission had consulted closely with officials in Donetsk and Luhansk, but that they had since been thrown out of office by the separatists.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which has been monitoring events in Ukraine, says that the Ukrainian government has been implementing the Geneva accord progressively, including dismantling barricades on the Maidan, Kiev’s central square and site of three months of protests that preceded the decision by the then president, Viktor Yanukovych, to flee Kiev in February.