Armenia Reloaded: 2013 Elections and Shuttle Diplomacy

EU-Armenia, Foto: Photographic service of the Council of the EU © European Communities

Elections in the Post-Soviet space are increasingly an European task and responsibility but mostly are leaving everything the way it is. Just take a look on Ukraine. Armenia is also preparing to hold elections in 2013. The European Union is getting ready for surprises but is more prepared after the Ukraine's election in 2012. Perhaps... There are more "sticks" than "carrots" for EU support of EU-Armenian relations. But Russia is offering more "security carrots" than "democracy sticks". But everything depends on Armenia.

Integrating Civil Society - The Case Civil Society Forum and Eastern Partnership

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) play crucial role in the society and respectively in their involvement into the every day policy desiscion-making. They provide political input and are active actors in promoting democracy and market-orientated reforms in the national economy, in promoting the rule of law and the respect for human rights. Involving the CSOs into the desicion-making process on European level remains the top priority of the European Commission for a sustainable success of the Eastern Partnership that covers the post-soviet countries Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Aserbaidshan. In doing so the European Commission proposed in its Communication of December 2008

• "to support the further development of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and 
• to establish an EaP Civil Society Forum to promote contacts among CSOs and facilitate their dialogue with public authorities".