Armenian NGOs to participate in conference on European democracy support

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the European Commission are organizing a conference on 9 and 10 March 2009 in Prague about the European approach to democracy support. The event was opened today with speeches by Karel Schwarzenberg, Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Václav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic, under whose auspices the conference is held. It will bring over one hundred democracy experts from EU institutions, Member States and non-governmental organizations to Prague.



The conference is organized in collaboration with the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), a European platform of organizations active in democracy assistance and the Czech Association for Democracy Assistance and Human Rights (DEMAS).



The conference will also be attended by representatives of European non-governmental organizations who will present their recommendations on democracy assistance. The receiver countries will also be represented in the panels by NGOs from countries like Russia, Armenia, Zimbabwe and Lebanon. Democracy assistance is among the EU's and the Czech Republic's foreign policy priorities and therefore the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs has invited experts from the EU Member States and institutions like the European Commission, the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU and the European Parliament to discuss how the individual policies and programmes can be made more effective.