EFDP: A ‘Benign Hydra’

Fifteen European democracy assistance organizations recently launched the European Foundation for Democracy through Partnership. By pushing for democracy assistance to become a pillar of EU policy, EFDP hopes to rescue the good name of democracy assistance by offering a no-invasion-necessary European variant. The website is only nominally up and running, but check out the brochure here.

The EFDP aims to work in “countries on all continents where EU funding does not reach partners and where there is not sufficient funding available for democracy promotion.” EFDP will also “focus on working with partners that are most necessary in building democracy, but which do not receive funds from other sources.” (They go on to a list of pretty usual suspects, but “political society” comes last.) Anyway, Timothy Garton Ash hopes it will be a “benign European hydra to advance the cause of democracy.”

Russia to Protect Human Rights and Promote Democracy?

So the Kremlin says.

Last week the EU and Russia sat down for a regular summit. Russia made a surprising announcement during the course of the event: Russia would begin to fund think tanks in Europe to protect human rights and promote democracy. The new think tank organization may be located in Brussels or another European capital.

Asserting that the EU and US regularly provide funds to civil society organizations in Russia, the Kremlin argued that their establishment of an Russia-funded organization would be natural outgrowth of Russia’s development as a modern state.

Right…

The institute may focus on the treatment of Slavic populations in the EU, especially in the Baltic states.

The increasing sophistication of the use of “soft power” by Russia is impressive. This development is related to the story that emerged last week about Russia’s proposal for a new set of standards for OSCE election observation missions. Needless to say, these new standards would do nothing more than tie the hands of the OSCE to make the election observation branch more toothless than it is already.

The gaming continues as the authoritarian states of Eurasia adapt. How will Europe, and the United States, respond?