Defending Democratic Values: European Democracy Support in 2022 - Annual Review Launch in Brussels

by Olena Gordiienko

“Do we have the effect we want to have as Europeans?” - this is the question that the Second European Democracy Support Annual Review is trying to raise if not answer, according to Antonella Valmorbida, President of the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD) and Secretary General of the European Association for Local Democracy.

The report, elaborated by Carnegie Europe and the European Partnership for Democracy, revised the year of 2022, which was quite extraordinary not only for the European democracy action, but also for the world and for the global state of democracy at large. While the report focuses on the Russian aggression towards Ukraine, which is galvanizing the narrative around democracy today, this has not entirely been the only changemaking factor in the world. In other regions several contextual factors have been tilting democracy scales for different local reasons.

The report, co-financed by the European Commission, complements plenitudes of existent indices on global democracy state with facts on democracy trends and norms. It informs on strategies, policies, and initiatives at the level of the European Union (EU) as well as those of its member states and of non-EU countries in Europe active in democracy support, such as Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The review covers the EU’s spending on democracy support worldwide, effects of sanctions and conditionality as well as EU security missions.

Richard Youngs, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, emphasised that the report identified two competing narratives in 2022: 1) The EU is stepping up as a geopolitical actor, versus 2) EU’s soft power measures such as democracy support are becoming increasingly difficult in the context of the former.

According to Ms. Valmorbida, the report highlights the need for a consistent approach of European stakeholders as well as the urgency to increase coherence both internally and externally. It states that the war in Ukraine has already influenced EU’s internal policies. However, Europe has first to improve order at home, in the opinion of the representatives of the European institutions present at the event, Viola von Cramon-Taubadel, of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, and Věra Jourová, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency.

“One of the ‘Future of Europe’ conference results is that citizens are pushing for more democratic reforms internally. Other results include the need to simplify EU’s architecture and to increase transparency of procedures and reflection of EU competences,” Viola von Cramon-Taubadel stated, adding that these demands should be taken more seriously in the EU and by the Member States.

Chiara Adamo, Acting Director for Human Development, Migration, Governance and Peace at the Directorate General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) agreed that the EU needs to position itself in a way that it is not the one “preaching”, “as we don’t have a perfect democracy in the EU”. “White horse narrative is self-defeating,” she added.

Ms. Adamo highlighted the crisis of trust and the related need to show people that democracy delivers for them on the ground. INTPA’s priorities, alongside its standing work on aligning EU and MS’s democracy support action for better impact, via the Team Europe Democracy Initiative and beyond, include mainstreaming the democratic principles across all interventions (Global Gateway being one example). Besides that, INTPA analyses the different contexts to identify and react to closing spaces and entry points. The institution is also reshaping policies towards youth empowerment, engaging and informing young people. “We must show them that democracy can deliver, and they are part of it”, Ms. Adamo concluded.

The European Endowment for Democracy has been providing democracy support to war-torn regions like Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh before, and stepped up its support to Ukraine in February 2022, creating a flexible emergency scheme for that. “It’s difficult to keep focus on democracy during marshal law. Civil society can’t claim its usual liberties against the state”, Peter Sondergaard, director of programs at EED, said. “Support is still possible. The incredible commitment of people operating in these conditions testifies the human instinct of democracy”.