How Ukrainian Cities Are Taking the European Integration Test

On July 1, Transparency International Ukraine’s Transparent Cities program presented the findings of its study Fighting Corruption and Ethical Conduct: How Ukrainian City Councils Pass the European Test for Integrity.

Our analysts examined 10 regional centers and Kyiv, looking at how city councils put anti-corruption mechanisms in place, whether they keep their documents current, how they work with the NACP’s tools, and how far integrity is becoming part of everyday governance.

Presenting these findings is a good occasion to talk about what European integration actually means for each individual city — not just at the level of negotiations in Brussels.

A great deal of the conversation today revolves around benchmarks — what Ukraine needs to do to meet the interim targets and, in time, close the negotiations on the relevant clusters. More often than not, these discussions come down to a single question: which laws parliament must pass and what the Cabinet of Ministers must do.

But the way the European Union and the European Commission assess countries does not rest on laws or the regulatory framework alone. Passing a law is not the whole of a reform. As I often say, an adopted law is roughly 20% of a reform. It is the same with European integration: sound legislation matters, but it is only part of the journey. What comes next is far harder work — implementation.

And when we talk about European integration, we should not fix our eyes on the center alone and wait to see exactly how it will deliver everything. In reality, we will all be the ones putting these changes into practice — through everyday work, not least at the level of local self-government.

That is exactly why this study places the emphasis on European standards — on which of their elements are already present in Ukrainian cities, and where the work still needs to be strengthened.

What matters is that we look not only at whether a document formally exists — whether it has been adopted — but at how it works in practice. We want to know how far these mechanisms have become so routine that there is no longer any need to keep reminding people about them.

Ukrainian cities have things to be proud of — examples worth showing to our colleagues in Europe. In some places there are solid codes of ethics; in others, anti-corruption policy is handled well, budget spending is reported transparently, or communication with citizens is genuinely effective.

But it cannot yet be said that all of this adds up to a single system — often these are just strong individual pieces. That is why, once the study’s findings are out, it is especially important to talk about how to make these practices systemic.

European integration is not some abstract story about a state somewhere far away. For an ordinary citizen, the state often shows itself through any interaction with what lies outside their private space — and the lens for that is frequently contact with the local authorities. 

So the way local self-government bodies work, how they engage with residents, how open they are, and how well thought-out their mechanisms for spotting potential risks are — all of this shows how ready we truly are.

This is about more than the capacity to integrate with Europe. It is also about how well we will be able to handle reconstruction projects, work with a range of stakeholders, and meet the challenges the country already faces.

This study helps bring out both the good practices and the areas where all of us still have work to do. That is why it can be read as a kind of self-assessment. After all, many of us are city residents, and each of us judges, in one way or another, how well local government works.

Transparency International Ukraine has been studying cities since 2017. At first we analyzed the level of transparency, and over time, accountability as well. In that period, Ukrainian cities have come an enormous way from where they were to where they are now.

Last year we refocused our research — no longer on transparency and accountability alone, but on how they connect to European integration. Because, as experience shows, not every city has fully grasped yet that European integration is about them too.

Local self-government in 2014 and local self-government in 2026 are two different worlds. This became especially clear in 2022, when in many cities it was the local authorities, local initiatives, and residents who together put up the first resistance to the Russians. 

Today it is important not to devalue that journey. But it is just as important to look honestly at where isolated good practices already exist and where they still need to be turned into a system. Because local self-government is the very stuff a state is made of.

This research is made possible with the support of the MATRA Programme of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine, and with the financial support of Sweden within the framework of the program on institutional development of Transparency International Ukraine.

Content reflects the views of the authors and does not necessarily correspond with the position of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine or the Government of Sweden.