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Service for Foreign Policy Instruments
News article21 February 2020Service for Foreign Policy Instruments

The EU launched new database of the EU Election Observation Missions

The EU launched a new Database of EU Election Missions. This is a joint project of the EEAS and the European Commission’s Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI), which gives an overview of the EU's work on elections observation.

Elections observation is a vital EU activity. It contributes to strengthening democratic institutions in partner countries, building public confidence in electoral processes, helping to deter fraud, intimidation and violence. It also reinforces the EU’s efforts in the field of peace building. Therefore, the EU Election Observation Missions (EOMs) are a highly visible demonstration of the EU's commitment to supporting democratisation and promoting respect for human rights across the world.

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In their final reports, EOMs offer a number of recommendations to improve future elections and to strengthen democratic institutions and human rights in our partner countries. The EU also deploys smaller technical Election Expert Missions (EEMs) as well as Election Follow-up Missions (EFMs) to assess the state of implementation of recommendations.

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The new database provides easy access to final reports, mission statements and press releases of all EU missions since 2000 – more than 300 missions, and many more to come. All EU EOMs' recommendations since 2016 can also be accessed by year, region/country, type of mission, election and type of recommendation, covering different aspects such as participation of women in political life or international standards like freedom of opinion and expression. Hence, the database is a very useful tool for everyone advocating for democratic reforms and promoting human rights. The database also facilitates research and analysis and allows tracking progress of electoral reform by providing information on the status of implementation of recommendations by country.

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The set-up of the new EU Database comes as result of a key recommendation of the European Court of Auditor's report on EU EOMs. In addition, it contributes to implementing the Council Conclusions on Democracy adopted in October 2019, in which the EU and its Member States committed to strengthening collective efforts needed to support and encourage the follow-up to EU Election Missions.

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Throughout the past year, the EU has already increased the number of Election Follow-up Missions (EFMs) and made systematic efforts to better link the work of EU Election Missions and technical assistance supporting electoral reform and the wider process of democratisation in partner countries.

The EU Election Missions database can be accessed at: http://database.eueom.eu

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Publication date
21 February 2020
Author
Service for Foreign Policy Instruments