ORANGE REGIME KILLS FEDERALISM IN THE BUD

DONETSK, June 30 (Itar-Tass) - The administrative-territorial reform of Ukraine considered by the government would cause disastrous consequences, opponents of it say.

The government met on Thursday over a package of draft laws on the reform that was thought up by Ukraine’s new leaders after the change of authority.

The redrawing of Ukraine’s territory envisions a three-level system of government, the formation of 4,000 territorial communities, 280 districts and 32 regions instead of the existing 490 districts, 24 regions and the autonomous republic of te Crimea.

Cities with populations over one million are to add to regions.

Governors of several regions flatly oppose the reform.

In the opinion of the Kharkov region’s governor Arsen Avakov, a “political reform at present is leading the country into a chaos, the loss of the vertical (of authority) and thus of government of the country.

“A danger of a halt to economic development, restoration of which will take a decade, will emerge,” he said.

Deputies of council of all levels and political scientists also warn about negative consequences of the reform.

“It is clear to all that a main goal of the reform is rooting out from the political lexicon notions like a region and federalism, as it will touch most painfully such historically established territories as Donbass and the Crimea that voted in the presidential elections against Viktor Yushchenko,” the director of the Centre of Strategic Planning, Vladimir Kornilov, told Itar-Tass.