The significance of the Council of Europe’s governance tool “Territorial and cross-border cooperation” for regional development: Literature review

Abstract

Pursuing the best European standards and practices of public administration and good governance of territorial and cross-border cooperation to strengthen the potential and institutional capacity of communities and regions of Ukraine is among the priority tasks of Ukraine’s regional policy and European integration course. Therefore, the purpose of the present article is to determine directions for improving the public management mechanism of regional development of territorial communities and regions of Ukraine by applying good governance standards and tools of the Centre of Expertise for Good Governance of the Council of Europe based on the expertise of the Association of European Border Regions. The following scientific methods have been applied in the course of the research: historical, logical and generalization, enabling us to investigate the state and expertise of developing scientific and theoretical provisions, as well as actions taken by subjects and participants of regional policy when developing good governance of territorial and cross-border cooperation. It has been discovered that one of the ways to improve the public management mechanism of the regional development of communities and regions is the introduction of the cyclical mechanism of good governance of the Council of Europe, which consists of: development of standards; creation of tools, recommendations, reports, manuals; research of best practices (golden triangle of good governance “standards – tools – practice”). The necessity of further formulation of directions for improving the public management mechanism of regional development of communities and regions of Ukraine through interaction and partnership with the Association of European Border Regions has been substantiated. Conducting a scientific and theoretical study of the standard and toolkit of good governance “Territorial and cross-border cooperation” of the Council of Europe, as well as the study of the Association of European Border Regions practices have made it possible to focus on the implementation of the standard and toolkit of good governance “Territorial and cross-border cooperation” at the local and regional levels. The results of the research can have practical value for representatives of public authorities and the public sector to update local and regional development strategies based on the implementation of good governance standards and tools.