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The creation of European Endowment for Democracy (EED) and possible challenges


The EED was created  in 2012 with the aim of supporting democratic processes within the neighbourhood states of the EU.  The necessity of such a structure was revealed in the wake of the “Arab Spring” uprisings and created with the aim of covering countries on the Southern border of the EU, and as well, around its Eastern border.
The countries involved in the South are: Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, and the occupied Territories of Palestine.
The countries involved in the East are the Southern Caucasus: Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia; and border with the EU:  Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.

The aim and mandate of EED is to provide funds and assistance to projects presented by the democratic actors of those countries.  The main challenge now is how to deliver those funds. They can be delivered directly to the actors, through other implementing partners (such as foundations or NGOs…) or directly through the EED (as Seminars, encounters…)

One of the key issues of the EED will be to avoid duplication of projects and programmes of other existing EU instruments such as: EIDHR, European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights; IFS EU Instrument for Stability and CSF, Civil Society Facility.  Accordingly, there will be a need to coordinate and to share information among several stakeholders. 

STRUCTURE:

EED was created with an Executive Committee of seven representatives, headed by an Executive Director, Jerzy Pomianowski, who will be assisted by a Secretariat.  The Executive Committee reports to the Board of Governors, around 40 representatives from different Institutions such as: the EU Parliament, the Commission, the External Action Service, the Council of the EU, Member States and three representatives from civil society.

The budget of the EED comes from EU budget, Member State donors and hopefully private donors.  For the starting point 6 million Euros have been assigned from the EU budget.

EED was created to be a flexible instrument for the funding and support of democracy in specific countries that are moving from an authoritarian regime towards democracy. The EU until this moment was questioned for been bureaucratic and slow in funding and delivering grants.  Until now, the process of granting funds to NGOs in certain areas had to follow very strict rules and requirements, such as being registered with the EU Institutions. 

Administratively, the EED is an autonomous entity registered as a private foundation under Belgian law and based in Brussels.

CHALLENGES

One of the main challenges of the EED will be to identify the counterparts that will be assigned to obtain funds from EED to support democracy.  Those counterparts will have to be submitted to certain checks to assure they do not belong to or associate with any criminal nor terrorist movement.

A second challenge will be the follow up of programmes and projects and the verification that the funds have been assigned to the specific project.

A third challenge arises from the fact that EED will not have any representatives in the field, so it will have to identify projects and actors through the EU Delegations, who until now work in development and mainly with governmental actors.

CONCLUSION

To support democracy in the world and to follow a comprehensive approach to development, peace and security, is a positive step. . The hope is that the creation of a new endowment for democracy, supported by all Member States, can make a difference in the progress of certain countries toward respect of human rights, including empowerment and rights of women, electoral processes and the improvement of democratic rights of their populations.  The EED will have to face some serious challenges, but it is created in a moment where there is a general demand towards the EU regarding the role that it should play in support of democracy.

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