On 23–28 November 2015, another study visit by Ukrainian state administration employees took place. It was organised under the V4 Civil Servants Mobility Program carried out in the Visegrad Group states by the Think Visegrad think-tank consortium and funded by the International Visegrad Fund. The visit was prepared by OSW in cooperation with the Institute of East-Central Europe in Lublin. Its subjects included the issue of public finances, their transparency and control over them, the issue of devising Poland’s state budget and the financial relations between local authorities and the central government.
The Ukrainian delegation included representatives of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine – Alla Dychenko, chief economist of the unit for works on draft budget of the Department for State Budget; Oleksandr Kushnir – vice head of the unit for revenues and interbudgetary transfers and for managing local budgets of the Department for Local Budgets; Vasyl Shkurakov, vice head of the unit for managing public debt of the Department for Debt-related and International Financial Policy. The delegation also included Zoryeslava Freyshyn, chief specialist at the unit for international projects of the Department for International Cooperation at the Ministry for Regional Development.
The Ukrainian delegation’s visit to Poland was inaugurated by a meeting with representatives of the Public Debt Department at the Ministry of Finance, which included a presentation by Barbara Adamowska, head of the Unit for Strategy, Forecasts and Statistics. At the Ministry of Finance the Ukrainian guests also met Piotr Dragańczuk, deputy director of the State Budget Department and Marek Wiewióra, representative of the Local Government Finances Department. At the Polish Financial Supervision Authority the delegation held talks with Dr Mateusz Morgulski, head of the Market Analyses Department and with Ludwik Sznajder, representative of the International Cooperation Department. The agenda of the visit to Warsaw also included meetings with experts of the Economic Institute of the National Bank of Poland – Marek Kitala and Hubert Bukowski. The Ukrainian guests also held talks with Marcin Święcicki, member of parliament for many years and coordinator of a group of experts to support Ukraine in carrying out a local government reform; and with Jakub Sawulski, economist of the Institute for Structural Research and Dr Justyna Glusman, expert of the Forum Od Nowa non-governmental organisation.
In Lublin, the Ukrainian delegation visited the Lublin Municipal Office, where the guests met Dr Mariusz Sagan, deputy director of the Department for Strategy and Investor Relations, and held meetings with Rafał Sobiech, deputy director of the Department for the European Social Fund at the Lubelskie Voivodeship Marshal’s Office, with Dr Lech Jańczuk of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and with Jan Mołodecki, chairman of the Management Board of the Association of Lubelskie Voivodeship Municipalities.
We would like to extend our thanks to all individuals and institutions that supported us in carrying out the project.
