25 / 06 / 2010 / Kristina Prunerová
First newsletter of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum
The Steering Committee of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF) would like to present to you an overview of the work of the Forum from its last meeting in November 2009. EPD Eastern Partnership Officer Kristina Prunerova is a member of the Steering Committee as a coordinator of the Working group 1 on Democracy, Good Governance, Human Rights and Stability. Please find the full text of the newsletter here. For any questions and comments please contact Kristina Prunerova at kristinaprunerova@epd.eu
The Eastern Partnership (EaP) Civil Society Forum is a
gathering of representatives of civil society from EaP countries and EU Member
States which will follow the agenda of the EaP and will prepare its comments,
input to discussion, recommendations and will also oversee the implementation
of EaP agreements. The Civil Society
Forum (CSF) is a great opportunity for NGOs from target countries but also from the
EU to participate in this process and to become a partner to the governments
and institutions. 
Following on from the EPD's Moldova Weekly newsletter, we are launching a monthly briefing on the situation in Armenia. 
In
order to support people interested in the partnership between the EU and its neighbours, the ENPI Information and Communications Support Project has created
a webportal with over 2000 pages of information in English, French, Arabic and
Russian. This includes news, an explanation of the policy and its instruments, a glossary explaining the technical language used, and portals to country-specific information. Read more about the ENPI information service 
The EPD's partner organisation, the Policy Association for an Open Society (PASOS), is organising a gathering of
young civic leaders from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the Slovak
Republic, and democracy and human rights campaigners from EU Eastern
Partnership countries, with representatives of the European Commission,
European Council, European Parliament, and EU member governments to be held in Prague on 10 December on the
occasion of International Human Rights Day and to mark 20 years since the end of
the Cold War and the end of communist rule in Central Europe. 
The EU's new Eastern Partnership (EaP) Civil Society Forum held its first conference on Nov 16-17. The EPD's programme manager for the post-Soviet and Asia region, Kristina Prunerova, was elected by delegates from civil society organisations to become the coordinator of the first working group on democracy, good governance and stability on behalf of those CSOs participating in the EaP Civil Society Forum that are based in the EU. Kristina will support Mr Siarhej Mackievic in his role as principal coordinator. 
The first meeting of the Civil Society Forum is being held on November 16 and
17 in Brussels with the participation of over 220 CSO representatives
from Eastern Partnership countries and the EU. In preparation for that meeting, a number of the invited civil society organisations got together to discuss the key issues. Read a full report of the preparatory meeting 
The EPD has the honour of presenting you with the final report from the
conference entitled “Building Consensus about EU Policies on Democracy
Support”, which was organized by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and the European Commission on March 9th and 10th, 2009, in Prague in
collaboration with the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD) and the
Czech Association for Democracy Assistance and Human Rights (DEMAS). On
the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Czech Republic
hosted this international gathering in order to address the issue of
the European approach to democracy assistance. The event was held under
the auspices of Karel Schwarzenberg, Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs,
and Václav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic.