New Policy Brief on European Endowment for Democracy - Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum

The European Endowment for Democracy (EED) has appointed an Executive Director, Jerzy Pomianowski current Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, who will take up his position at the EED in May. The EED is expected to be fully operational and launch its grant-making activities in the summer of 2013.

The Board of Governors Meeting of the EED was co-chaired by HR/VP Ashton and MEP Brok The newly appointed Executive Director Jerzy Pomianowski surrounded by colleagues of the Executive Committee - Photographs Pavol Demes

On this occasion Věra Řiháčková, Member of the Steering Committee of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum and Senior Research Fellow at the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy, has written a policy brief with the title Great Expectations, The launch of the European Endowment for Democracy should mark the beginning of a new ear of EU democracy assistance for the Policy Association for an Open Society (PASOS) outlining the next steps needed and proposing a set of recommendations.

According to Věra Řiháčková “a solid foundation has been laid to enable the EED […] to tackle a number of well-known funding challenges and becoming a results-driven donor with a measurable impact on supporting democratic development in third countries”. Despite this positive expectations, “some issues still need to be addressed, such as securing the support of key EU member states. The civil society actors who have been advocating for the emergence of the EED should remain supportive, but also vigilant.”

Her main recommendations are as follows:

secure active involvement of several big EU member states
initiate a debate on an alternative formula for securing stable inflow of substantial EU funding in order to ensure independence from member states interests
EED needs to work with a full range of actors, including individuals and non-registered entities
Introduce institutional development grants and seed grants, which are not available under the existing EU funding mechanism
Launch a fellowship programme for democracy activists to spend time in Brussels in order to learn about EU policy and to develop and participate in partnerships and networks
Develop a limited and focused policy research agenda to supplement, inform and sharpen EED’s grant making activities, working with think-tanks not only in the EU but also in the beneficiary countries and working through existing platforms, networks and umbrella organisations, such as the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, that can pool research resources
Make Turkish NGOs eligible to implement activities and projects in EED target countries
Include Russia in the list of eligible countries for grant recipients

The policy brief Great Expectations, The launch of the European Endowment for Democracy should mark the beginning of a new ear of EU democracy assistance by Věra Řiháčková is available here.