У статті проаналізовано правові засади створення етнічно однорідних об’єднаних територіальних громад у рамках територіальної реформи й децентралізації в Україні – крізь призму фактичної
реалізації компактними корінними народами і національними меншинами України права на внутрішнє політичне самовизначення.
The article analyzes the legal basis of creating monoethnic united territorial communities in the
frames of the territorial reform and decentralization in Ukraine – through the prism of de facto realization
of the right to inner self-determination by the geographically concentrated indigenous people and national
minorities in Ukraine. Taking into account Russian-inspired military intervention in Ukraine that resulted in
Russian annexation of the Crimea, the main attention in the article is paid to de facto inner self-determination
of the “continental” national minorities of Ukraine.
In its decentralization initiative, Ukraine may consider the intentions and final results of polar alternative
experiences of Switzerland and Spain, as the Swiss cantonal system widely recognizes the subsidiarity principle
of the significantly high level of cultural affairs autonomy for its cantons and municipalities. To the contrary,
Spain implemented regionalization policy based on the unique political agreements of the state with
each of its “problematic” regions, which only encouraged the irredentist inspirations and secessionist movements
of such subjects.
In this context it is necessary to stress that the so called de facto inner self-determination of the national
minorities, according to the Ukrainian decentralization reform, in no ways means their autonomization or
statehood-building, but only their territorial organization, effective participation in local self-governance, and financial / infrastructure capacity building (if not talking about the Crimean Tatar people, who probably
will get their ethnic-based autonomy in frames of the unitary Ukraine).
At the same time, despite the clear self-determination provisions mentioned in the 1990s political declarations
and Constitution, the controversy rules of the 2015 Decentralization Act caused systematic difficulties
for ethnic minorities’ practical self-determination if it needs unification of several localities in a “cross-district”
or “cross-regional” way.
