Nieuws over politieke trainingen en ontwikkelingen in Oost- en Zuidoost Europa, de Kaukasus, Afrika en het Midden Oosten
At a meeting of the EU-Moldova Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, Member of the European Parliament Monica Macovei said Moldova should sign the political part of the Association Agreement with Europe first. Macovei, who is the co-chairwoman of the committee on behalf of the EU, responded to fears for Russian aggression in the region on Tuesday 25 March. Moldova has sounded the alarm on Russian pressure on the government coalition in response to its European-integration agenda.
Afgelopen weekend (20-22 maart) organiseerden wij twee trainingen in Jordanië. Beiden waren jongerentrainingen georganiseerd samen met onze lokale partners in Jordanië, Jordanian Commission for Democratic Culture (JCDC) en het Al-Sindyan Institute.
On 13 April presidential elections are scheduled in Macedonia. The two candidates who get the most votes will compete against each other in a second round, scheduled on 27 April. On this day parliamentary elections take place as well. Next to the current president, Gjorge Ivanov, three other candidates are running. The presidential role is largely ceremonial.
An Egyptian judge, in the town of Minya, sentenced 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death on Monday 24 March. 16 suspects were acquitted. The court issued its ruling after only two sessions and defence lawyers said they had no chance to present their case. The ruling was the biggest mass death sentence handed out in Egypt’s modern history.
Afgelopen weekend (21-23 maart) organiseerden wij in samenwerking met onze lokale partner Ettakatol een mediatraining in Tunesië. De training vond plaats in Tunis voor leden van Ettakatol, met hoge functies in de partij.
Today, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy and Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk signed the political part of the Association Agreement. An Association Agreement is EU's main instrument to bring the countries in the Eastern Partnership closer to EU standards and norms. It comprises four general chapters: Common Foreign and Security Policy; Justice and Home Affairs; the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA); and a fourth chapter covering a range of issues including the environment, science, transportation, and education. The trade part of the EU accord, which is the bulk of the treaty, is to be signed after May.
The Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party announced, on 18 March, its withdrawal from the Kyrgyz government coalition, which means the government, will be dissolved. Ata-Meken party leader Omurbek Tekebayev said the withdrawal was the result of a parliamentary inquiry into the State Directorate for Reconstruction of Osh and Jalal-Abad Cities, which was headed by Prime Minister Jantoro Satybaldiyev. The ministers will remain at their posts until a new government is formed.
General elections of a new parliament in Bulgaria have been held on May 12th 2013. The results were that the number of parliamentarians in the former leading party GERB (which stands for Citizens for an European Development of Bulgaria) declined from 117 to 97 persons, whereas the number of socialists (BSP) more than doubled to 84 parliamentarians and the Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedom (DPS) consolidated its position with 36 members.
On April 17th presidential elections are scheduled in Algeria. The current president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been in power for the last fifteen years, will run again. His candidature has caused a lot of resistance by opponents, which have staged several protests. Next to the current president, eleven candidates have registered for the elections. The Constitutional Council have examined all applications and approved those of six candidates. Despite this number, changes that Bouteflika will win again are huge.
Exit polls predict a landslide victory for the centre-right Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the parliamentary elections of Sunday 16 March. Winning almost half of all votes, the SNS will gain an overall majority in the Serbian parliament. SNS leader, Alexander Vucic, is widely believed to become Serbia’s new prime minister. The turnout was 50.3 percent, 3.3 percent less than the last elections in 2012.
