At the Three Seas Local Government Congress, Roman Matys represented Ukraine in an expert group from the Three Seas Initiative countries. The group looked at where the region’s economies should go after the pandemic and during the war in Ukraine, and which goals they could share.
The panel also included Łukasz Grabowski (Poland), Konstantin Bekos (Austria), Matej Hojnik (Slovenia), Monika Cegnar-Jurjević (Croatia) and Bohdan Lukasík (Czech Republic). The common theme was human potential and the quality of vocational training.
Roman Matys showed how Ukraine’s population changed over 30 years: 52 million after the collapse of the USSR, 42 million after the occupation of Crimea and part of Donbas, around 33 million after the full-scale invasion. Add a gender imbalance and rapid ageing. He called the situation difficult but fixable.
Calls to come home are not enough. Ukraine’s infrastructure still lags behind what people have seen abroad, so the country has to compete in other ways: lower taxes, convenient digital services, access to education. This matters most for remote workers, who choose where to live themselves.
The experts agreed that the quality of education needs constant work. Austria’s and Germany’s dual education was seen as useful for the whole region, and the Three Seas countries were encouraged to share practices and build joint strategies.
Original (in Ukrainian): matys.com.ua