The Global Governance Institute’s Democracy and Human Rights Unit is leading a new policy and advice project for the European Parliament, focusing on how national parliaments in European Union accession countries can be strengthened to reinforce democracy across the nine countries hoping to join the EU in the future. Implemented in cooperation with Ecorys Poland, the project examines and assesses various tools and past efforts of EU member states, international organisations and NGOs in strengthening the administrative, procedural and political capacities of the national parliaments of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye and Ukraine. The main aim of the project is to advise the European Parliament’s Democracy Support and Election Coordination Group (DEG) as well as the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) on how to reinforce the European Parliament’s parliamentary capacity-building policies and approaches in the context of EU Enlargement. Drawing on an extensive comparative analysis of past and current parliamentary support programmes by EU member states’ parliaments, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU), NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly as well as a wide range of international and local NGOs, the project will identify best practices and concrete examples of how to effectively strengthen and enhance the democratic functioning and impact of national parliaments in the accession countries. The project’s deliverables include an in-depth study based on more than 80 interviews with national and international experts, an extensive mapping exercise and two briefings of members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg (DEG) and Brussels (AFET). The project will serve as an important foundation for the GGI Democracy and Human Rights Unit’s wider work on democratic resilience and capacity-building across the EU and wider global context.
