Vice Prime Minister, Vice Prime Minister - Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services Volodymyr Hroisman attended the plenary session of the EU Committee of the Regions, held on April 2 in Brussels.

In his speech the Ukrainian official confirmed the clear aspiration of the Government of Ukraine to continue and strengthen relations with the European Union.

Volodymyr Hroisman said that the government is ready for substantive dialogue with European institutions concerning involving Ukraine to the European regional initiatives in the interests of development of interregional cooperation with EU regions in different sectoral areas.

"Currently, as not all features used for regional cooperation between Ukrainian and European regions, the development of the dialogue is important. Our task is to inform as much as possible European businesses, investors on the available economic resources of each Ukrainian region and the possibility of their development, investment and innovative projects that should be implemented. In this context, the Government, local authorities and local self-government bodies are working on formulating a clear vision of perspectives of the introduction of cooperation instruments at the regional level for the benefit of our regions and our citizens," Vice Prime Minister said.

He also added that Ukraine is interested in creating the necessary preconditions to reform local self-government and regional state authorities. Volodymyr Hroisman informed the European Community that the Government had taken the first step in this direction on April 1 - approved the Concept of Reforming of Local Self-Government and Territorial Organization of Authority. In the near future, according to VolodymyrHroisman, the Government will consider a number of bills on the right of local communities on unions, on cooperation of local communities and on community self-organization bodies.

"Success implementation of these steps will make our local communities efficient, enabling them to make decisions regarding the development of their territories, as who else but the community better aware of how and what they need to do to ensure that each resident receive quality services and the opportunity of self-realization," Volodymyr Hroisman said. He is convinced that joint efforts in this regard of the Government of Ukraine and the EU Committee of the Regions will soon give the expected results.