Conference: The EU and the Eastern Neighbourhood: The Challenge of Democratisation

On Friday 10 February, the Natolin (Warsaw) campus of the College of Europe held a one-day conference 'The EU and the Eastern Neighbourhood: The Challenge of Democratisation'.

This conference focussed on the theme of democracy in the Eastern neighbourhood and considers the EU’s endeavours at installing good governance into the region. The conference considered the need to strengthen the Eastern Partnership (EaP) to build sustainable democracy in the Eastern neighbourhood and secondly, to enhance civil society’s role, principally via the Civil Society Forum, in the implementation of EU policy.

The past two years have seen progress in negotiations on new Association Agreements, Visa Liberalisation and trade between the EU and the Eastern neighbours. The institutional framework of EU neighbourhood policy has been enhanced through the Civil Society Forum, the EURONEST Parliamentary Assembly and the Conference of the Regional and Local Authorities of the Eastern Partnership regional conference (CORLEAP), amongst other fora. Funding for the Eastern neighbourhood has also grown via the re-channelling of existing streams, creation of fresh funds as well as new offers from European financial institutions. The state of the neighbourhood remains, however, a cause for concern with a region-wide relapse in democratisation. The rule of law is feeble and principles of good governance are elusive. This state of affairs is accompanied by high levels of corruption, poor civil liberties records and persistently low media freedoms. With these points in mind this conference will focus on the theme of democracy in the Eastern neighbourhood and considers the EU’s endeavours at installing good governance into the region. The conference considers the need to strengthen the Eastern Partnership to build sustainable democracy in the Eastern neighbourhood and secondly, to enhance civil society’s role, via the Civil Society Forum, in the implementation of EU policy.

Convened by the College of Europe in person of Dr Kerry LONGHERST, speakers at the conference came from a variety of NGOs, Civil Society, policy and academic backgrounds and include Mr Boris NAVASARDIAN from the Yerevan Press Club who is Coordinator of the Civil Society Forum Working Group on Democracy, Human Rights, Good Governance and Stability; Mr Oleh RYBACHUK who is a Member of the Ukrainian National Platform Coordination Council for the Civil Society Forum; Mr Thomas VENNEN from OSCE; Mrs Kinga BRUDZINSKA from the Community of Democracies Secretariat in Warsaw and Mr Andrei YAHORAU from the Centre for European Transformation in Belarus. For further details contact Dr Kerry LONGHURST (kerry.longhurst [at] coleurope.eu).

Conference Report