The 6th Kiev Dialogue will take place from October 28th until October 30th 2010 in Kiev.

The theme for this year's dialogue will be "Corruption in politics, economy and administration - Civic society´s and international Counterstrategies".

On the 28th of June, a press conference on the local elections in Belarus with perspectives on the coming presidential elections, and on the situation of human rights in Belarus took place at the Helsinki Foundation in Warsaw.

On the 29th of June, a discussion concerning the same topics was held in Berlin. Click here to view the photo gallery. 

With: Vladimir Labkovich, Lawyer and Expert for election monitoring in Belarus, Human Rights organisation "Viasna", Minsk; Juraś Hubarevič, Movement for Freedom; Presentation : Adam Busuleanu, European Exchange.

Please find the link to the press articles.

The German-Russian Exchange and European Exchange Berlin have developed a position paper “For a New Start in Civil Society Cooperation with Russia”, which has already been signed by a number of European foundations and non-governmental organisations. The signatories appeal to the EU and its member states to make it more straightforward for Russian civil society actors to cooperate with their European partners, and to markedly increase the financial resources available for this key area. The demands include the creation of an EU-Russia Civil Society Forum and visa-free travel for civil society actors.

You can read and dowload the paper (in English) by clicking the link below.

EU-Russia Position Paper

Here you can download the "KO-RUS-Kurier", newsletter of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs from June 2010 by Dr. Andreas Schockenhoff, Member of the German Parliament and coordinator for German-Russian civil society cooperation. He gives a report on the discussions about the Role of the EU in Russia's Modernization, that took place on the 6th of May, 2010, both in the German Parliament and in the Representation of the European Commission.

On the 25th April 2010, Belarus held local elections. European Exchange, in cooperation with the Human Rights Organisation Viasna and the Belorussian Helsinki Committee, has been reporting regularly on the important developments in Belarus in the run-up to the elections. A weekly newsletter has been produced in both English and German. Read more.

Preliminary_Statement_on_the_23_December__2009_Municipal_Elections_of_EMDS.pdf According to the findings of EMDS, a network of domestic election observers in Azerbaidzhan, the local elections in Azerbaidzhan held on 23rd December 2009 suffered from several violations of the national election law and international obligations. EMDS observed the election with 96 long term observers and 1400 short term observers in all 118 election districts. The most severe violations occured in the registration process of candidates, in restricition of freedom of assembly and access to mass media for opposition candidates and in intransparency during the vote counting. 35,076 candidates were registered, 17,688 of them were members of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (NAP). The voter turnout was about 17 percent. Read the report of EMDS here.

bericht_eastern_partnership.pdf On November 16-17th, the European Commission hosted the first Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership in Brussels. More than 200 representatives of civil society organisations from the six countries of the Eastern Partnership attended the event. Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt congratulated the participants and encouraged constructive co-operation with the European Commission. Please read the report from the meeting here. (in German)

Gemeinsamer_Aufruf_russischer_und_deutscher_Nichtregierungsorganisationen.pdf Russian and German non-governmental organizations signed a common declaration on the occasion of the third anniversary of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. Three years ago, on 7th october 2006, the Russian journalist and civil rights activist Politkovskaya was murdered in the stairwell of her flat in Moscow. The case remains unsolved. For further information please open the paper above.

Please find here the 2008 annual report of the European Exchange.