How Ukrainian cities are implementing EU standards and which are leading the way
According to estimates by the European Committee of the Regions, more than 70% of European Union legislation has been implemented at the local and regional levels. Ukrainian communities will therefore have to comply with a substantial portion of these rules, not only after Ukraine joins the EU, but already during the accession process, as EU standards are incorporated into Ukrainian legislation.
In particular, local authorities will have to implement EU regulations in areas ranging from waste management and wastewater treatment to state aid, social services procurement, accessibility and the decarbonisation of transport and heating. Some of these changes will require substantial investment, while others will demand new expertise within municipal councils.
As a result, a community's limited institutional capacity may eventually cease to be merely an internal problem for a particular city and become an issue affecting Ukraine's compliance with common EU rules.
Read more about how Ukrainian communities are advancing European integration and the challenges they face in an opinion piece by Olesia Koval of Transparency International Ukraine: Less than half of what is possible: What the European cities index revealed and what lessons should be drawn.
In its 2025 report on Ukraine, the European Commission noted that decentralisation reform must remain an important component of meeting EU accession requirements. The document also specifically mentioned public consultations, medium-term budgeting at the local level and citizen participation in decision-making.
It is important to understand, the author emphasises, how these key European integration reforms are being implemented in Ukrainian cities and whether they are being implemented at all.
To assess this, Transparency International Ukraine launched the European Cities Index.
The index measures local European integration through the day-to-day work of municipal authorities.
2026 was the index's pilot year. The team behind the Transparent Cities program, implemented by TI Ukraine, assessed the performance of local self-government bodies across six areas: transparency, electronic services, open data, public finances, integrity and accountability.
Cities could score a maximum of 100 points.
Kyiv and Lutsk topped the European Cities Index.
"Kyiv ranked first in the Electronic Services and Open Data sub-indices, while Lutsk led in Integrity and Anti-Corruption and Accountability. However, the leaders' scores of 55.3 and 53.4 out of a possible 100 indicate that Ukrainian city councils have a low level of readiness to meet European integration requirements in the area of transparent democratic governance," Olesia Koval writes in her op-ed.
The average score among the 11 cities included in the pilot study was 44 out of 100.
The head of Transparency International Ukraine's Transparent Cities programme notes that the research raised an important question: can a reform be considered complete if it does not work at the community level?
On the one hand, she explains, some rules and practices required under EU standards must be implemented locally,for example, in the areas of open data, access to information, electronic services, public finances, citizen participation and investment management.
However, Olesia Koval emphasises that the obstacles to implementing reforms sometimes lie beyond the control of municipal councils and stem from shortcomings at the national level.
One of the study's conclusions for the Ukrainian government is therefore highly practical: European integration will require greater attention to what happens to a reform after a law has been adopted.
"If a new rule applies to local communities, it must be sufficiently clear so that in Kyiv, Lutsk, Kharkiv or any other city, authorities do not have to reinvent it every time, or simply fail to implement it," the author concludes.