A Call to Defend Democracy: Reviving Democracy Support under the EU’s Incoming Leadership – a Policy Brief

A European Leaders’ Call to Defend Democracy recently urged the EU to accord strong priority to supporting democracy in the next institutional term that will begin after the upcoming European Parliament elections. This statement makes the general case for why democracy call is important and calls on the EU to adopt a number of policy commitments. 

Today, following Sunday’s European Parliament elections, leading Brussels-based democracy organisations: the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), the European Network of Political Foundations (ENOP) and International IDEA, are launching a new policy brief that provides further details on policy ideas to operationalise these democracy commitments.

The policy brief proposes 10 ideas for improving European external democracy support and 5 ideas for the internal democracy agenda.

Among the ideas included in this brief are:

• The creation of a Commission for Democracy Support or Special Representative, to provide for one clear champion among the EU leadership with the competencies and institutional weight to raise the profile of this policy area.
• That EU and member state donors commit to spending at least 5 percent of development assistance on democratic institutions, civil society, human rights and free media projects including combatting disinformation.
• That the EU updates its definition and use of democratic conditionality in a way that clarifies the place of democratic standards in its foreign policy.
• That the EU tightens the link between accession and democracy support as part of the Enlargement Process in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

The full Policy Brief can be viewed here.