Ensuring Financial Self-Sufficience of Territorial Communities: Experience of Eu Countries

Abstract

Introduction. The change of the administrative-territorial system at the basic level and the reform of the public administration system in Ukraine in 2014–2020 took place on the basis of the experience of the EU countries regarding the decentralization of administrative and financial powers in favor of local self-government. Today, the first stage of reform has already been com­pleted, because territorial communities as the basic units of the administrative-territorial system have been formed throughout the territory of Ukraine, as well as redistribution of spending powers and revenue sources between different levels of management. Accordingly, the issue of ensuring financial self-sufficiency of territorial communities for the long term is being updated. Decentralization in European countries took place in different periods, and therefore, the tasks that today face the Ukrainian state and local self-government in particular, these countries have already solved with one or another measure of efficiency, which makes it possible to talk about the possibility of adapting the acquired experience to domestic realities. The purpose of the article is to study European practices of ensuring financial self-suffi­ciency of basic administrative and territorial formations for the further implementation of the most effective practices in domestic realities. Results. The practice of developing the public finance system on the basis of decentral­ization in the EU countries was studied, the difference between the levels of decentralization of territorial communities in different countries and the tendency to exceed the level of decen­tralization of expenses over the level of income decentralization was revealed. Emphasis is placed on the key principles of ensuring financial self-sufficiency of territorial communities in the European Charter of Local Self-Government. The existence of a financial "cushion" for territo­rial communities in the form of distributed resources from supranational funds is substantiated. Given the lack of such a mechanism in Ukraine, the need to study European practices for accu­mulating sufficient financial resources for community development is argued, including taxes on economic activity (personal income tax, corporate income tax, local business tax, property taxes on commercial real estate and land) and local borrowing.