 Good so welcome everyone to this second day of the democracy week actually today It's the actual democracy day September 15 We are coming to you live from Brussels and a few other places in the in Europe I believe and it's a pleasure to see so many people who have turned tuned in It's about 34 degrees outside So it's not only the agenda of today's discussion that reminds us that we are living in unusual times Today we will not be focusing on the weather, but we will be talking about the COVID-19 and If we were here offline, then I would have thank you all for showing up on such a warm day But I'm pleased that many people are following us today, and I hope that we will get a very interesting discussion My name is Peter Sundegard. I'm the director of programs at the European Endowment for Democracy I'm the moderator of today's high level session with you leaders and leaders of international organizations that will discuss their vision for the future post pandemic democracy support before getting into the Program for today's event. I would like to thank international idea Who's the leading event organizer for democracy week 2020 who's also hosting today's event and the partners of the democracy week You'll be a network of political foundations Partnership for democracy and likewise, I would like to thank the European Parliament, which is supporting the democracy week a few formalities before we get into discussions and the panel is that the participants can use the chat on YouTube and the Twitter hashtag Democracy week 2020 to ask questions So please participate actively even if we are online and we will try to address the questions that We have a pretty packed an interesting program in front of us today. So I'll let us get straight into it the first opening speech will be coming from the president of the European Parliament It's Maria Sassoli. The first of us. Thank you Buongiorno a tutti, è un piacere aprire la settimana internazionale della democrazia perché la democrazia è una conquista Continua non dobbiamo mai darla per scontata o acquisita per sempre La democrazia ha bisogno di cure di essere rinnovata ma soprattutto deve sempre accompagnarsi alla giustizia alla giustizia sociale allo stato di diritto non bisogna dimenticare che in europa la conquista della democrazia visto il sacrificio di milioni di persone nasce sulle macerie lasciate dalla seconda guerra mondiale dalla lotta Heroica di uomini donne che si sono battuti Contro il fascismo e il nazismo per questo l'Unione europea ha la democrazia al centro dei suoi valori Fondativi difendere la democrazia oggi può sembrare Certamente meno eroico ma è altrettanto necessario se vogliamo dimostrare che la democrazia è il miglior sistema Politico e di governo dobbiamo farlo con i fatti fornire Soluzioni soluzioni concrete all'altezza delle sfide sociali Economiche politiche che i nostri cittadini devono affrontare proteggere con i loro diritti Defendere le loro diversità come una ricchezza comune e fare della loro partecipazione Attiva la nostra principale Ressourza l'Europa il resto del mondo sono stati duramente colpiti da questa pandemia più di 800,000 esseri umani nel mondo hanno perso la vita a causa del covid 19 vivranno per sempre però nella nostra memoria e lavoreremo senza sosta per superare Questa crisi anche per loro per farlo dobbiamo mantenere viva la democrazia parlamentare renderla naturalmente più efficiente Grazie ai vantaggi delle era digitale siamo riusciti a superare Molte difficoltà che ci ha messo di fronte il coronavirus in piena pandemia e il Parlamento europeo l'unico Parlamento transnazionale letto direttamente dai cittadini ha continuato a lavorare per adottare le misure necessarie per aiutare i nostri cittadini e il funzionamento del Parlamento ha consentito il funzionamento dell'Unione europea per questo abbiamo sfruttato sempre con il rispetto delle regole democratiche delle nostre regole e regolamenti le possibilità che oggi ci offrono le nuove Tecnologie sono fermamente convinto che supereremo anche il virus e che mostreremo la nostra capacità di resistenza ma abbiamo bisogno anche che i meccanismi della democrazia siano più efficienti Devo non rispondere di più ai bisogni che i cittadini hanno e naturalmente Che magari non possono aspettare e non possono rimandare per questo dobbiamo ascoltare anche la rabbia dei nostri cittadini quando Esprimono e fare le riforme necessarie per costruire democrazia sempre più Inclusive democrazia in cui nessuno si senta lasciato indietro la democrazia non è senza volto Mala alle tante facce di chi continua a lottare Perezza e spesso sono proprio coloro che la difendono ad essere ne privati per questo voglio cogliere questa occasione anche per parlare dell'avvocato iraniano per i diritti umani nasrin su de vincitore del nostro premio sacroff per la difesa dei diritti umani è stata Novamente arrestata dopo essere stata rilasciata nel 2013 ora si trova in condizioni critica causa del suo sciopero della fame con il quale vuole attirare l'attenzione sul destino dei prigionieri politici In iran ed è per questo che chiediamo e chiedo il suo immediato rilascio la democrazia è un processo non è passata di moda Tanti in giro per il mondo ci guardano con ammirazione vorrebbero naturalmente avere anche loro la possibilità di godere dei nostri diritti dobbiamo essere orgogliosi di tutto questo dobbiamo essere orgogliosi di questi 70 anni di pace vissuti in sistemi democratici in cui la libertà e la libertà del cittadino per noi ancora il valore su cui esprimere la nostra attenzione ideale. Sappiamo che la democrazia può essere la nostra forza per rendere l'Unione Europea ancora più capace di rispondere alle sfide globali. Vediamo tanto vento di autoritarismo in giro per il mondo e naturalmente noi vogliamo rispondere alle sfide con i nostri valori, i nostri principi, le nostre regole e i nostri trattati. Grazie e buon lavoro. We get about that today. Often such words of history seems very abstract and distant but I think in today's world then we actually feel these words and that history much less distant than we would like it to be and I think also President Thassoli gave a good example of how how the parliament has managed to to adapt to this situation and actually managed to continue its work in a very competent fashion during during the lockdown during the pandemic and I think that's showing a good example to other parliaments, to other democracies of how it's possible to adapt and change during a challenging time. So this was the welcoming message. Now we will turn to the panel for today. First, we will start with two pre-recorded messages. So first I would like to pass the floor to Veda Yudhava, Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Values and Transparency. Ladies and gentlemen, I regret I cannot be with you live, but I am very interested in the debates of today's conference. The discussion about crisis of democracy is probably as old as democracy itself. The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic for democracy are yet to be fully assessed, but there is no doubt that they are profound. Democracy is complex. It is a system of guaranteed freedom, of rule of law, of checks and balances. It is actions of citizens and of the media and I strongly believe you cannot just write down democracy in the laws alone. Democracy has to be written in our hearts. Yet we also see what happens without democracy. People in Belarus and Hong Kong are fighting for their rights. In Russia, yet another opposition figure is brutally removed from the political scene. But today I want to focus on Europe, because sadly also our democracy is facing many risks. While the debate often focuses on a few member states, we have to realize that the whole western world, including the United States, has seen a rise of political movements that go against the achievements of liberal democracy. The mechanism is similar everywhere. To find an enemy, to instigate fear and instrumentalize it in internal political game. Sometimes they point to the EU, sometimes at migrants, sometimes at minorities, such as for instance LGBT people, or the elite. This is easier than proposing how to reform the tax or health system or create decent jobs. And in the times when we have a lot of uncertainty about our future, not only for Covid, but also because of technological revolution, there is a lot of ground for such strategies to work. So what can we do about this? First, we should stop taking democracy for granted and promote it. We need champions of democracy in different places in society, people who will stand up for democratic principles, and we should support them. Second, we need to be proud of our imperfect democracies and defend its virtues. One of the propaganda narratives that reappeared during this crisis was that authoritarian regimes are better at managing societies in times of crisis because of the discipline and swift decision making. Yet to those that tell us we have to choose either security or freedom, I say there is no one without the other. It's been tested. Take it from someone who spent a big part of her life in an illusion of safety of a totalitarian regime. And third, even in times of crisis, measures have to be democratic. Many governments introduced strict rules in order to combat the pandemic. There was a valid reason for this, but these measures must be proportionate and they must respect the principles of democracy. Fundamental rights and the rule of law. Even in times of crisis, democracy itself must never be suspended. There is no excuse for banning the expression of critical opinions. There is no excuse for putting pressure on the media or for indefinitely postponing elections. We live in the age when we have solutions and means to allow for remote participation in elections or in democratic debates. So this crisis should encourage us to invest and develop these tools further. And fourth, we have to address the challenges to democracy in the digital age. Covid pandemic is accompanied by the influx of false stories and disinformation. We know that social media often rewards and amplifies negative emotions such as anger and outrage. Hate speech and online mobs drive the polarization of the electorate even further. Another growing threat relates to paid political communication online. Hidden political messaging paid by murky money, sometimes targeted at users thanks to the abuse of private data and often with the intention of distorting political debate simply should not be acceptable. The funding and display of political messages and advertisements online should be transparent and accountable. Political ads belong to the public square in democracy. Hidden micro targeting techniques are moving such debates. From the public squares to the digital basements. So this commission wants to act to make democracy in Europe more resilient. Our flagship initiative is the European Democracy Action Plan, which will focus on countering disinformation and adapting to evolving threats and manipulations as well as supporting free and independent media. The plan will include legislative and non-legislative measures. And as always, the commission will work closely together with the member states, civil society and a wide range of stakeholders at its implementation. The public consultation for the action plan closes today and we intend to adopt the plan by the end of the year. The commission has also included media pluralism in the new rule of law mechanism, which will look at systemic issues affecting the democratic debate in all member states. Democracy in many places in the world remains a hope. In the European Union, it should not be taken for granted. The EU is both a community of democracies and a transnational democracy itself. I believe Europe is ideal place to be a champion for democracy in the world. There are still many lessons to be learned from this still ongoing crisis, but I remain a cautious optimist. The biggest achievements of the EU, in fact the EU itself, are born out of the crisis. When the going gets tough, Europe gets going. I can only promise you that we will put all our effort to come out stronger also after this crisis. And that I will not forget about the real heroes of democracy who are individual people. Thank you. Yuleva for this intervention and good words. I think that the commission has painted a very good and broad picture of the complexity and all the different challenges we are facing today when struggling and fighting for democracy. We look forward to look at the further work on the democracy action plan and hope that it will indeed be adopted by the end of the year. And I was very pleased to hear the encouraging words from the commissioner that Europe is ideally place to be a champion for democracy and also the causes of optimism that is also good to see in a time of crisis. And then maybe we have a new slogan for the EU here when the going gets tough, Europe gets going. So we will repeat that and look forward to see more of that. So now I am very pleased to pass the floor to Michelle Patelette, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for her efforts. The floor is yours. Greetings. For months now the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging our societies and governments, testing our leadership and humanity and aggravating inequalities and forms of discrimination that harm billions of people. It has also been teaching us a number of key lessons about how to construct more resilient societies including the need for universal health coverage, another social protection and environmental measures. Chief among them, COVID-19 has demonstrated once again how vital it is to strengthen the foundations of democracy. Responsive and accountable institutions, the broadest possible public participation, freedom of expression and freedom of the media are some of the democratic pillars which ensure that policies including public health measures are based on the public's trust leading to greater compliance and better outcomes. To address COVID-19 and recover from it, effective policies can only be devised with the participation of all those who are affected. And this is clearly a human rights issue. People have a right to raise their concerns and participate in shaping the policies that will deeply affect their life for years to come. It is also about ensuring more effective governance, for example. As governments develop innovative ways to control exposure to COVID-19 through new technology, we have seen how deeply those tools rely on public buy-in and thus on trust. Public trust is reinforced when the public senses that tracing apps and other technologies have been devised by legitimate and responsive agencies, taking into account the public's feedback and respecting their human rights. The pandemic has also demonstrated the value of free, independent and plural journalism and freedom of expression in times of crisis. Access to evidence-based information provides the population with the resources they need to understand, participate and follow the guidelines of health authorities. And journalistic investigations enables accurate real-time feedback to the authorities about the implementation of their decisions on the ground. Information saves lives. At a time of public health emergency, this double-functional journalism, informing the public and monitoring the authorities' responses, is especially crucial. This is a time for more transparency and more journalism, not less. Sadly, these are lessons that are not being universally applied. Since long before COVID-19, and including in many long-established democracies, attacks on human rights defenders with impunity, harassment of the press, crackdowns on peaceful assemblies, deliberate weakening of institutional checks and balances, and decline in civil liberties and growing polarization across society have been worrying signals of democratic decline. When the pandemic hit, this science exacerbated and we observed further worrying trends among a number of states that adapted extraordinary measures including unchecked executive power, disproportionate penalties and enforcement and restrictions on speech. Some governments enacted open-ended emergency legislation without possibilities for effective oversight. Several deployed military forces to perform law enforcement and other tasks without adequate measures for oversight by civil and authority and without respect for human rights law. Movement restrictions were in some cases established and enforced in ways that were not human, reasonable or fair, for example, imposing heavy fines or even imprisonment on hungry people leaving their homes to feed their families. And in a number of countries, governments appeared to be using COVID-19 as a cover for further restrictions on fundamental freedoms and seek space, violating human rights and undermining the rule of law. Emergency power should not be a weapon wielded by governments to wash dissent, control the population or perpetuate their time in power. Such measures do not advance effective pandemic responses that deepen the crisis. It's clear there is not a single model of democracy, but all strong democracies share some essential characteristics. I have quickly outlined two of them, vibrant participation by civil society and a free and independent press. Let me turn briefly to another essential factor, solid oversight institutions which keep governments accountable for their actions. There should be a supervision of the exercise of all emergency measures taken in the context of the pandemic, including periodic and independent review by the legislature and judicial oversight, with scrutiny of any emergency legislation introduced under state of emergency. All exceptional measures should comply with strict requirements international law imposes on temporary limitations of human rights. Today, as we mark International Day of Democracy under the theme COVID-19 Spotlined on Democracy, let's remember that democratic systems have time and again demonstrated their resilience and effectiveness in dealing with exceptional challenges. Solid public participation, official transparency and accountability through oversight institutions and a free press are tremendous advantages to devising policies that navigate crises most effectively. As the world develops policies for life after the pandemic, we must do so with renewed commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law. We will build back better with democratic institutions based on a renewed commitment to the strong human rights principles that protects our values and our peoples. Thank you. So in that sense, I can still thank some of the things that we didn't know here because he ended up saying that for democracy, we need a vital civil society and a strong free press. So I wanted to thank the High Commissioner for those words and also say that we couldn't agree more that this is really crucial. And as we were reported in the press, then the High Commissioner in her office was at the Human Rights Council in the UN yesterday opening that session and they are expressing the concern about the expressive use of violence in Belarus. So we think this office is a very good example of how multilateral institutions can play an important role in monitoring and trying to help such crises to come out in a peaceful and democratic way. So we're pleased to see that the High Commissioner's office is engaged in this situation. So now we got through the pre-recorded messages and we will go to the live participants and I hope that we will be able to do that without any technical challenges. But before going to that, I would like to remind the participants that they can post questions with using the hashtag on Twitter on Democracy Week 2020 and also by typing in the chat of the live YouTube stream. And then we turn to our first live panelist and I'm very pleased to pass the floor to Heidi Hautner, Vice President of the European Parliament responsible for Human Rights and Democracy and a long-term friend of EED and support of many of the partners we support for democracy. So Heidi, the floor is yours. Thank you, Peter. Thank you very much. I would like first to give credit to the report that you and the partners have produced for this international day of democracy, the 15th of September. I read with great interest a global democracy and COVID-19 and I think there's a lot of wisdom there that we have to explore while this COVID-19 crisis is still unfolding in many parts, in most parts of the global, I would say, and the report percussions will be very, very remarkable. And also likewise I would like to thank the international idea for this great call to defend democracy that you mobilized some months ago. It's worth reading over and over again. And so indeed what the report says is that while the global death toll of the virus is our utmost concern, it also says that the pandemic has posed a clear threat to democracy. Indeed, friends, this is something that we must take very seriously. How does the COVID-19 and the threat to democracy look like? To fight the pandemic, governments across the world have enacted far-reaching emergency measures and many of those measures have been proportionate and justified, but too many have not. Instead of suppressing the virus, they have suppressed freedoms and open society. And in many countries, the public health crisis has been used as cover to seize powers that have little to do with the pandemic, with very few safeguards against abuse. We know of the silencing of whistleblowers. We know of suppressed information. We know of suspension of the legislative procedures and of the vanishing act of the independent media, of disappearances and unfair judicial proceedings of those who were unlawfully detained in the first place. Let us be clear with such regimes, the tendency to silence critics and oppress people was there already before the crisis, but COVID-19 presented them with a golden opportunity to seize more control. At the same time, the EU has decided to fight the crisis with democracy, with transparency and with citizen participation. At the opening of the G7 speakers meeting, President David Maria Sassoli underlined that democracy is something that we cannot suspend because of COVID-19. More than ever, we need cooperation. Parliament needs to work together across borders to show that democracy has not become outdated. The civil society is very much under threat. So, let us recall that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights decreased that everyone has the right to freedom of association, in particular in political matters. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights all the same. During the pandemic, these organizations, also the third sector of society, along with the government and private sector have exposed transgressions by many governments. So, indeed, this has further endangered the staff of the civil society organizations and their operational abilities, as they have faced imprisonment and worse. I'm very glad that the European Parliament, at its very highest level, has called for a release of Mrs. Nasrin Sutule, who is a laureate of the European Parliament's Sahara Prize, who has been in hunger strike and whose health is reported deteriorating. She is one of the political prisoners that were double punished because she is a political enemy considered by the regime. And, unlike other prisoners, political prisoners were not released temporarily. But, to defend democracy, we must make sure that the civil society will have sufficient political support and resources in order to do this important work. And I want to underline the message in the report that the economic recovery must not cut into the funds previously dedicated to civil society and force them to reduce their capacity just when they are critically needed. Despite the attacks against civil society and fundamental rights, we must make sure that democracy will not become a casualty of the pandemic along with a terrible loss of life. I've read with mixed feelings that the regimes who have engaged in imposing heavy restrictions claim to have slowed down the spread of the virus. In the short term, that may be they argue that liberal democracies are too slow, too weak to tackle the pandemic. Now, I think this is a profoundly false narrative and I want to explain why I am of this view. While fighting against COVID, both democracies as well as authoritarian regimes have seen success and defeats. As is acknowledged in the report, trying to isolate the impact of political regime type is extremely difficult. To find an answer to what is the most effective way to fight a pandemic, we must analyse the ability of any regime to survive a crisis, not only short term but also long term. As we begin our move towards the subsequent phases of the pandemic, the commitment of each individual in their daily lives and in their immediate and private surroundings to wash hands, keep distance, wear a mask and if needed to isolate is key. The report states that the citizens are more likely to comply with government measures, long term when they feel they have a voice over government decisions. That's a strong bond of trust between the society and the government is necessary if a contribution by every individual is required. And this is my key observation. To survive this and future crisis, it is therefore necessary to strengthen this trust, the sole social contract. The report notes that ways to achieve this is to bolster inclusion and pluralism. Of crucial importance here are access to information, legislative oversight, open debate and most importantly, voting. Please give the citizens a voice and thus a sense of ownership in the political process. Voting participants in a democracy are more likely to accept their government decrees rather than those who have suffered injustices and have been marginalised by them. And I come to my point about structural injustices which are now being exposed by the pandemic. The commitment of each individual to wash hands, etc., however, is not at all the full answer to how to fight the pandemic. The full question would have been whether each individual is willing to commit and is able to do so. While this is a symmetric shock, but the impact on people is asymmetrical. In the United States of America, African Americans have suffered disproportionately. In Europe, the Roma people face incredible challenges when trying to keep themselves and their families safe. For example, the Roma people have suffered great disadvantage as they are unable to adhere to the guidelines of social distancing and regular hand washing. 30% of Roma in Europe live in households with no tap water. We have frontline workers, such as nurses, even in the most developed countries as our neighbours, that have risked their lives on daily basis because of the nature of their work. So too many people live in precarious situations. I'm delighted that the EU has woken up to these injustices that we actually export to outside our borders. Now, the EU is very much looking into how we can protect the rights of people who are exploited abroad to produce goods and services for the European market. For many years, I have been worked for a mandatory human rights corporate due diligence law in Europe, and I'm delighted to see that finally it is emerging at the horizon. And the European Union has a very good chance to take global leadership in combining human rights and democratic values with business. And finally, I would like to say that this crisis that we go through now is not the last one as we all understand. Our crisis resilience will be tested again sooner than we would ever hope. We have a crisis in our hands that is much more devastating and sweeping than this pandemic, which is already hard enough. The climate crisis will rapidly upend our societies as they used to exist and it will test our capacity to cope. So the virus is a stark reminder that we have pushed our ways of living to the brink of what our planet can sustain. So we need to engage every individual and enable every individual to engage to fight the global climate crisis. And I believe very much that the answer on how we can weather a global crisis today and in the future lies in the strength of our social contract, the resilience of our societies and the vigor of our democracy. I'd like to finish by quoting a President Spassoli who spoke at the opening of the G7 country parliamentary speakers meeting three days ago. He said, we need to overcome this crisis with democracy, with transparency, with the full participation of our citizens. And he referred to the European Green Deal. The Green Deal proposal has helped us during the time of COVID-19 because we have understood that all our energies of all our member states need to converge, need to be put towards achieving our common goals. The ecological transformation, he said, has to go hand in hand with sustainability, economic sustainability, social sustainability and the struggle against inequality. I wholeheartedly agree with these words. Thank you. I mean, with a lot of very important and strong messages. And I think one of what you said was that the crisis is reinforcing other things that we're seeing already. It's in some ways not showing us anything new, but showing it in a very uncomfortable, transparent way. And this is something that we need to acknowledge and address and understand that this is the type of crisis we are facing now. And as you said, this might be a preparation for other crisis to come in the future. And I think what you said and stressing the importance of trust that democracies can create and the social contract that works in democracies. Those are very important things that we need to preserve and also cherish and value when we respond to such crisis. Because even if the jury is still out, there can be arguments that sometimes a more authoritarian regime can respond in certain ways to the pandemic that democracies cannot. And it's clear in the long term, as you stressed, in the long term, there are things that there is an endurance and a commitment of people who have a voice and who are part of making decisions that you will not have if people are forced to do things. But these are things we will come back to in the panel discussions in a minute. I was told that we're going to give the High Commissioner another chance technically to be listened to. So we will see if it doesn't work, then we will finish it very quickly. But we pass the fog into the High Commissioner for Human Rights, your High Commissioner. Greetings. For months now, the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging our society to work any better. So I think we will have to leave it at that. But still thanks very much to the High Commissioner for providing this message and participating today. So we stay with the live participants and technically it worked very well with the connection to Heidi. So I'm now very pleased to introduce our next live panelist, Kevin Kazasamura, Secretary General of International Idea. And Kevin was instrumental in initiating and coordinating the call to defend democracies in the early days of the pandemic. And this statement made sure that the democracy and democracy support agenda stayed higher than the agenda at the moment when the whole world was preoccupied with just fighting the virus as a disease. And I think that was really important and very good timing. So Kevin, I'm pleased to pass the photo to you. Thank you very much, Peter. I'm truly honored to celebrate Democracy Day at this event alongside such distinguished speakers. I would like to greet the Vice President of the European Parliament, Heidi Paltula, and other friends, colleagues, and all the participants of today's webinar. It is great that you can be with us today. This event is particularly important to us not just because of the topic of the discussions, but also because it brings together the European and international democracy community at a time when our collective efforts to support democracy are more important than ever. The International Democracy Day conference has for several years been co-organized by International Idea, the European Endowment for Democracy, the European Partnership for Democracy, European Network of Political Foundations, and Carnegie Europe. We are also glad that since 2016 the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the European External Action Service join as co-organizers. I truly value the strong partnership with our fellow organizations based in Brussels and the excellent collaboration that made this possible. On behalf of all the organizing partners, I would also like to thank the European Parliament for their invaluable support to this week's event, as well as the ones before. As for Democracy Day, there is a lot to celebrate, but there is even more to strive for. This is not an easy time for democracy. Democracy was facing severe headwinds even before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. The challenges are even starker now. It is obvious by now that COVID-19 not simply poses acute health and economic challenges, but also political challenges. Both at the individual and the collective level, this virus hits those with pre-existing conditions the hardest. And this crisis has been unforgiving in exposing pre-existing ills in democracies all over the world. Leadership deficits, polarization, weak governance structures, under-investment in public goods, and a very serious erosion of trust in political institutions. Unsurprisingly, authoritarian rulers under the guise of pandemic-related measures have tightened their greed on power, silence critics, and circumvented democratic processes. That was to be expected. Belarus is a case in point. I think I can speak for all organizers when I express my solidarity with the protesters and say that we'll sympathize and support their struggle for a democratic future. However, it is also democratically elected governments that have resorted to emergency measures all over the place. And this is totally legitimate, up to a point. Because we are already seeing cases all over the world where emergency powers are being invoked in order to do things that have nothing to do with the pandemic and everything to do with the intention of shutting down critical voices, limiting civic spaces, and harassing minorities. We have seen examples of emergency powers deployed to curtail the free flow of information and enhance state surveillance with little regard for price. The examples are right. They range from El Salvador to the Philippines to Bangladesh to Zimbabwe. But much closer to home here in Europe, emergency powers were authorized without a clear expiration date, as in the case of Hungary, or were promulgated without due parliamentary approval and oversight, and has been the case in Serbia. These decisions are as concerning as they are predictable. They happen to take place in countries where the rule of law on democratic checks and balances were already on their strain before the pandemic. In all this story, I'm particularly concerned about trends related to media integrity, where government limited citizens access to information under the pretext of fighting this information. This is happening in all regions of the world. There have been cases where media outlets and citizens of large were instructed to disseminate only the official statement dated information about the pandemic, or where journalists were harassed or arrested for reporting facts and question actions by the authorities. Abuse of emergency powers is not the only risk, however, posed by the pandemic. The pandemic has and will continue to be a true stress test for democratic elections as well. Roughly 70 countries and sub-national jurisdictions have decided to postpone elections scheduled for 2020. On the other hand, roughly the same number of countries and sub-national jurisdictions have decided to go ahead and hold elections amidst the pandemic. That decision is not an easy one. At this point, we have enough evidence from around the world about what works. We have seen examples of resilient and resourceful election management bodies and citizens who have adapted to new conditions in short time frames. We have seen how efforts to build consensus around decisions about the electoral processes, efforts to strengthen special voting arrangements, efforts to effectively communicate the safety measures adopted, have resulted in high voter turnout and renewed trust in the electoral system. But we have also seen cases where governments have ignored due process and attempted to use this pandemic to play fast and lose with electoral rules to extend their term in office, thereby leading to political polarization and compromise the electoral process. Overall, this pandemic has proved how important respecting the due process, engaging in evidence-based decision making, seeking consensus with political opponents, protecting the free flow of information and nurturing the open engagement between government and citizens. All of them, the finding elements of a working democracy, are in time of crisis. To counteract some of the troubling political developments we are seeing, international idea and all organizing partners here have since the beginning of the pandemic re-oriented our work to gather data, analyze, provide support and shed light. On the effect of the pandemic on democracy and human rights, some of the reflections today stem from this analysis. But I would also like to highlight a few other initiatives that might be of interest to this audience. As we know today on the occasion of International Democracy Day, we are launching the report entitled Global Democracy and COVID-19 Upgraded International Support. Initiated by our friends at the European Endowment for Democracy and offered by Dr. Richard Young's Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe. Peter will give us the highlights of this report shortly. But for me, this is truly the perfect example of a sharp analysis of the challenges and opportunities posed by the pandemic. Even more importantly, this report, which has been supported by the way by 11 pro-democracy organizations from around the world, this report puts forward concrete policy recommendations to provide crucial support to pro-democracy actors, governments as much as civil society organizations in this critical time. And just before the summer, we had idea and some of the members of the panel have been generous enough to mention this. We had idea, started an important cooperation with the European Commission's BGDEPCO and developed a global monitor on the impact of COVID-19 on democracy and human rights, which I invite all of you to have a look at on our website. This one-stop shop contains an impressive, continuously updated overview of how COVID-19 measures taken by governments in 162 countries affect democracy and human rights. It also complements another mapping that we had idea due of COVID-19 and its impact on elections across the globe. Last but not least, I also want to mention the importance of advocacy efforts related to these issues. In the open letter, a call to defend democracy, which has been alluded to here before, initiated by International IDEA and actively supported by all our partners here, as well as other 70 pro-democracy and pro-human rights organizations from all over the world. We argue that, and here I quote, the COVID-19 pandemic threatens more than the lives and the livelihoods of people around the world. It also threatens the future of liberal democracy. And of course, the letter clearly hit a nerve. We were taken aback by the response to it. More than 500 global political and civil leaders, novel lawyers, public intellectuals, journalists, and activists sign it, and the number continues to increase. Why? Because many people out there are already conscious of the risks that this pandemic entails for them. We must leverage this. If we care as we do about the future of democracy, this is the time to build global coalitions to protect it. Moreover, this is the time to join forces to build better and more resilient democratic institutions. We're this, and we are eager to support our partners, colleagues, and friends on the local, national, and international levels. Our donors and members states, civil society organizations, public authorities, and political actors with our knowledge and technical expertise. And we're eager to support the European Union in particular, which has a key role to play globally to protect democracy from the authoritarian onslaught. This is why I would like to commend the recent initiative taken by the European Commission to accentuate their work on democracy through its upcoming European Democracy Action Plan. It couldn't be more timely. Democracy is neither created nor maintained by itself. In fact, there's nothing inevitable about democracy. It is something that requires courage, dedication, and continuous support. I certainly hope that this crisis will prompt donors and assistance providers to enhance dialogue, coordination, and cooperation to support democracy around the world. I strongly believe that this is our best way forward, multilateral responses, more coordination between ourselves like we are doing during this democracy week. And fostering more dialogue between stakeholders in society to develop sustainable responses to the challenges of our era. We have our job cut out for us. Helping to build democratic institutions that serve people's trust. And helping to build more resilient societies, as High Commissioner Bachelet advised, will not be easy. But it is indispensable in order to deal with the consequences of this pandemic to prevent the next one and to preserve the fundamental rights that are part of our common human heritage. Faced with the authoritarian temptations that we're witnessing around us, we must realize that we are in a twilight struggle. It is a struggle that will demand a lot from us for a long time. Each of us needs to stand up for democracy and translate that commitment into actions, knowing full well that while the values we defend are eternal, our victories are always transitory and subject to reversal. Now, more than ever, international idea is ready to make the case for democracy with conviction and with a sense of urgency. It is the case that has not lost one ounce of its power to inspire and give hope and light in this time of darkness. And I'm counting on all of you to help us win this global debate. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kevin, for this also very encouraging word and also for describing in detail all the good efforts that you and international idea have engaged in. And I think you stressed the importance of a collective effort and I think you have been the prime example of how to lead a collective effort and get results out of a collective effort. Having more than 500 people signing on the defense democracy, the statement is indeed a great achievement. And I think this is the way that we should engage in defending liberal democracy in this time of challenges. We are not, we still have a bit of time but we're running a bit short. So what I will do now, I'll give a very brief presentation of the report that has been mentioned many times and then we have two interventions and questions from the floor. So let me do my part quickly so that we have time for discussion afterwards. So the report Global Democracy and COVID-19 Upgrading International Support. This was an initiative that was actually a spinoff from the good work Kevin was doing on the defend democracy statement with the idea to provide policymakers with a deep understanding and information of how the equipment should continue to provide resources and prioritize democracy support in the responses to the COVID-19 crisis. So as a spinoff of the work on the statement, we at EEG initiated a working group that was working on this paper with Richard Youngs from Carnegie and Elin Pantulitsa that were doing the hard work of putting everything on paper with a very tight and short deadline and they managed this very well. And as Kevin mentioned, then the report is supported by 11 democracy support organizations and many of these are also among the partners for the Democracy Week. And importantly, we also had our transatlantic colleagues from NED and ISIS and Parliamentary Center were also part of the work. So the report and the paper had a transatlantic aspect to it as well. Some of the recommendations in the report have already been mentioned, but let me just briefly go through them. One of them is to set up a COVID democracy tracking to have regional international initiatives to track the evolution of restrictive emergency measures. And I think Kevin already showed that the international idea has responded to this recommendation by setting up the global COVID-19 monitor and also the LXN monitor. So this one international idea follow up in a very good way and I advise so I would recommend everybody to see the good work that they have put on this monitor. Another recommendation is to make sure that the aid that is being given on COVID is also sensitive to democracy. So it's important that any recovery packages or any packages to mitigate the consequences of COVID-19 also has a strong aspect on democracy support and that they make sure that civil society will get support directly as part of those packages because civil society is suffering and in the long term we will need civil society to remain strong. Another recommendation is to promote and support new civic initiatives that have initiated or that have emerged as a response to COVID-19. And this is where in our work at EED we have been really very much encouraged to see how media activists, journalists, civic activists, how they have responded to these difficult circumstances. Initially we thought that there would be much less active participation in society but actually we have seen the opposite in many cases that groups managed to adapt to the new challenging situations. And they have been coming to us for support in an even more active way than they did before. So this is a very positive outcome of the crisis so far and we should build on that in the future. And then we recommend international coordination of democracy. Kevin went into details about this and also the aspect of making sure that there is a multilateral response to democracy support because that is the only way we will remain strong that is if there are many countries that are behind democracy support. And this is what we see in different corners of the world with different crisis that having many states and having multilateral institutions engaged in support to these activists is how we can get the results. And then as a more broad recommendation then we also list that the pandemic is an opportunity to rethink democratic practices. And we're seeing that for instance with the European Parliament managing to also work online. We're seeing that there is an acceleration of e-voting so there are a lot of technological developments that provide for better quality and democratic politics. But at the same time of course we have to make sure that none of these new approaches will undermine the democracy and the way it has to work in order to be efficient and effective. So conclusively then we say that the post-COVID world is going to be a different world that will require new ideas and approaches to protect democratic practices and combat authoritarian abuses. I believe that the link to this is now in the chat of the YouTube chat and you saw the publication in the beginning of my intervention. So this was briefly about the report. We might come back to it in the questions and answers. But what I would like to do now is to open the floor for questions and answers. I did receive a couple of questions but we have two of our co-organisers, co-organising partners that I would like to pass the floor to first. So first it is Ken Godfrey and Ruth Haggans from the European Partnership for Democracy who have a short intervention and to present a new paper they just published. Thank you very much, Peter. And thank you to everybody for participating today. I would like to just touch on one thing that the Vice President Yerova said, which she mentioned sort of not taking democracy for granted and sort of being proud of our imperfect democracies. I think it really highlights the importance of rhetoric and narrative in the discussion, particularly at a point where there's rising populist rhetoric that uses and is more successful at appealing to voters. And I think that we need to do a really much better job as supporters of democracy of really making the case forcefully for why democracy is the most effective form of government. I like the use of the public square and not the digital basement. Things like that, we should be doing more of that. I would like to pick up on the fifth recommendation of the paper that you mentioned, Peter, very just very quickly because we have released the paper yesterday that looks at the sort of longer term consequences, the scenarios for democracy around the world. We arrived at four scenarios and we took a global view, considering we're a network. So we have experts from different organizations that contributed to analysis of different trends within the democratic space, looking at digitalization, political participation, et cetera. And one of the clear conclusions is that there will be massive pressure for change around the world. And in this, the ability of states to adapt will be key. And so it may mean that democracy is a better place than we would traditionally think given those trends, which are unfortunately rather gloomy. You can find the report on our website. I'd maybe just highlight two things to link to that fifth point of the report that you mentioned. The first of which is that we really need to focus on democratic principles in the digital sphere. This has become very clear in the pandemic if it was not clear to many people already. And the scenarios show that the digital sphere in the next decade is likely, very likely to have a massive impact on participation on the functioning of democratic institutions, but also on the way that geopolitics functions. And we're likely to see geopolitics have a massive impact on the digitalization of our public sphere. And the second thing that I'd like to note as a conclusion from the exercise is something that I guess we all need to grapple with, which is how we revitalize or rejuvenate support for democracy around the world. It's clear there are many challenges in Europe. There are many challenges across the globe, as Kevin mentioned earlier. And it's to me a very good moment for us to think about this more in a structured manner and to discuss what might be done and what sort of priorities we should have. Because at least in my mind it's clear that, and the exercise showed this, that big changes are coming and people supporting sort of open, accountable, inclusive government should be ready for those changes. Good contributions. And I think also, yeah, the digital base is a very nice term which should indeed be remembered and used often. We should be ready for the discussions. And I think that's part of the challenge we have today because now we're in the same room with people who share the same convictions. But we really need to get the message out and engage in the discussions with the broader public in order to be successful longer term. So now I'm very pleased to introduce another co-organizing partner. This is Enop, Cornelia Hoffman from the Enop network coordinator who has the floor. Thank you, Peter. Let's just think about the input and valuable insights on this really multi-faceted problem or issue at stake here. Enop, the European network of political foundations, is a network of 54 political foundations from 23 EU member states that are affiliated to but independent from six political party families represented in the European parliament. And we consider ourselves as bridge builders between civil society and political party. There will be an entire session dedicated to the role of political parties in the current context tomorrow. So I won't go into that issue right now, but rather I would like to raise attention again for the role of civil society in the current pandemic. As Commissioner Jurova said, the real heroes of democracy are individual people. In the last few months, we have seen a variety of civil society movements and activities. People stand up to fight for the democratic rights such as in Belarus, but people also stand up to express their discontent in their few non-proportionate and unjustified government measures such as lockdowns and social distancing rules. People mobilise to support each other in times of hardship, such as the eight o'clock applause for staff working in the care sector in Belgium and in other countries, but people also mobilise to polarise. As civil society organisations are being silenced and restricted in some places in the world, at the same time they are louder, more innovative in their ways towards their wants. So I think it has come clear also from the interventions we heard today that we're talking about much more than a health and economic crisis here. It is imperative that a post-pandemic recovery include issues of democracy and human rights. And there is simply no democracy without human rights and vice versa. And civil society can and does play a crucial role here. Civil society calls its government its leaders to account. Civil society requests transparent and sex-based information and proportionate measures to tackle the current crisis. Civil society calls for freedom of media and expression and requests to take gender issues into account. An issue particularly prompting with regard to the increase in domestic violence in the last months. As has been said in yesterday's session as well, what could stay with the values of democracy are actually on the rise. But decision makers fail to meet this demand. So there is a huge opportunity for the EU here to take up its role as a value-based actor. It is desperate you need it. Thank you. Thank you for your contribution and I also am emphasizing the role of political parties because we didn't speak so much about political parties during the interventions today but clearly they are a cornerstone as well of our democracies and institutions that allow democracies to be adaptive in a constructive way, which is very often necessary. So it's very good that there will be a session on that tomorrow and I encourage everybody to join for that session as well. I've been told that the link to the UN High Commission of Speech is now available on the YouTube chat so just you can open it from there and see the full speech without any interruptions. So now we will go to questions during the remainder of the event and we have received some questions in the chat so I would like to pass them to Kevin and Heidi and let me just give you both of the main questions that there are. One question is how the crisis has affected the EU's response in the countries outside of EU and this is coming from Open Dialogue Foundation and then a second question is that COVID has exaggerated crops and risks and human rights violations in other countries at what states is the EU human rights sanctions received? So that's two very similar questions, a question of how EU can best respond and what EU is ready to respond with and of course it would be good to have the Commissioner with us but Kevin and Heidi you get a chance to let us know your thoughts on this. Thank you Pierre. I mean I have to say that I'll better yield the floor to Heidi since those are questions pertaining the European Union I think it's appropriate for her to provide some remarks on this. Thank you for the questions. First on the human rights sanctions regime. As we know the EU is capable of putting persons under restrictive measures such as visa ban or asset freeze. So this exists and of course this has been practised with individuals relating to the Occupational Crimea and other situations but it has become very obvious that it needs to be conceptually crystallised and clarified and that it has to fulfil a certain very important criteria of legality and rule of law which needs also a mechanism to redress because of course sometimes it does happen that individuals are put under this type of sanctions regime which would not actually be justified so they can always turn to the European Court of Justice in such a situation and actually the Court has already turned down some of those decisions that the Council, the member states have taken but indeed my understanding is that the German presidency has given quite a high priority to finalise the work that has been going on for quite some time I think at least one to two years so we can probably see a result of this still in the coming months of the end of this year and I always think myself that there are sort of two gaps in our human rights regimes and one is that we need more efficient ways to direct sanctions against individuals who are complicit in very serious or who are perpetrators of very serious human rights crimes and of course we need the criminal sanctions as well but that's for more serious ones and the other one is that we must make corporations and companies accountable and this is what I mentioned in my intervention but the really delightful and to some extent surprising development of the past few months is that the EU has actually now undertaken a plan to sort of do away with this gap that corporations and companies must also be respectful of human rights this is directly from the UN guiding principles of business and human rights which is already there since a decade okay the other question how has the crisis affected EU response to outside countries this was from Open Dialog Foundation whose work I know very well well from the parliament's point of view the problem was that we had to focus our work on what was called whole business I mean to manage the budget to make sure that the extraordinary measures to fight the pandemic would be there but then month by month the parliament has resumed ordinary work and this very week the parliament is back with the monthly three human rights urgent resolutions which is let's say a very well established mechanism and that's play a role in defence of many difficulties many people in difficult situations human rights defenders and others so I hope that at least the parliament will keep the external action service our diplomats and the commission alert and is now becoming more and more active itself this week we are discussing the situation in Belarus we are discussing the situation after the Navalny murder attempt and also the urgent situations in Mozambique and the situation of one of our former Saharov law rates Dr Denis Mukwege of Democratic Republic of Congo so indeed we are back in human rights business and we have to keep this very high great thanks very much Heidi so it sounds like a lot of efforts are being done and that the parliament is still very actively engaging and it's good to hear that you're back on the monthly rights resolutions again and the following these situations closely so I don't know if you want to add anything here Kevin but then I would like to ask you another question and Heidi may also follow up afterwards if you have things to add but you spoke a lot about the coalitions and that we need to strive for together so how do we take that from words to action what steps do we need and what can we do because I think this is one of the challenges that we have and also following on what Kevin said that it's very easy to say the words but how do we really get the concrete action to follow up here do you have any thoughts on that? Sure Peter, I mean the single most important thing is to start calling people I mean that's how we put together the remarkable coalition that ended up supporting the call for democracy and then eventually the policy paper that we're launching today I mean the first thing that we need to do is to understand that we're in a twilight struggle that this is a struggle that will go on for a long time and that none of us will be able to make a significant difference if we try to go it alone the task at hand is really about building a sort of global protective network to preserve democracy and this is a network that it needs to involve governments and I certainly hope that many governments will be part of this effort you know I happen to be doing this from Stockholm well Sweden is the case in point Sweden is the case that has decided to make the defense of democracy a pillar of its foreign policy I would hope that more countries will join this effort particularly and let me be very very candid here particularly given the fact that some of the actors that were instrumental for the past century in promoting the global spread of democracy are challenged at this time and that I think for the foreseeable future will have a much harder time to project the soft power that enables democracy to spread its wings around the world so it has to involve governments the Swedish government and hopefully others that will step up to the plate and turn this into a priority but it needs to involve civil society organizations it needs to involve democratic political parties it needs to involve committed citizens all over the world but really I mean there's no recipe to build coalitions other than realizing that you cannot go it alone and that this is a struggle for the long run and that the task that we need to succeed in is about building this global protective network otherwise the authoritarian temptations will prevail because as I try to convey my remarks I guess what is in crisis is not the case for democracy the case for democracy remains strong remains powerful, remains convincing, remains attractive what is in crisis is the notion that the spread of democracy is inevitable it is not and that's what we are realizing so we have to keep working at it every single day collectively but indeed I think that those are very good words that the case for democracy is in I know means in crisis there are other crises and also some challenges as you mentioned but the case for democracy there is no competition today and I think that's very important even the authoritarians are competing trying to present that they are democracies even when it is visible to everybody so I think that's a very strong message and thought that we need to take with us because that also gives that conviction that actually this is in the long term but it will take efforts and it will take efforts to build such a global protective network as you mentioned but indeed we need to make the call and we need to mobilize people Heidi, do we have any additional thoughts on this one? We have seven minutes left so if there are any conclusive thoughts to grab on then please go ahead Yeah, I think you made a good point on just say that democracy doesn't have competitors because even the autocrats they kind of indirectly acknowledge that they don't want what people want they don't want to give freedom they don't want to give rights and there are very few people today who really are in the belief that they should have no rights but then I think Ken Godfrey made a very interesting point on he asked that we should look and this article that European Parties for Democracy obviously has produced which I would look at with great interest we'll speak about how we vitalize support for democracy but then again, I think there's a looming question that we do have ways and reasons why we should vitalize itself democracy not just support for democracy and I would say that it is this demand by a lot of people to have a role between elections not just vote and be represented which is a big challenge that has not been really addressed thoroughly we're talking about local democracy we're talking about national democracy even transnational democracy because I think one of the real breakthroughs of the EU was that when Zizka Desperne was leading the convention to revise the treaties then he quite sort of carelessly put a subtitle or maybe a title of a chapter to his draft treaty and it said participatory democracy and then of course our friends who fight for participatory democracy they came and say look, what does it mean? and then there was a very useful process and debate where the civil society was absolutely key and the result was the European Union right of citizens initiative so this is the background of how it came into existence and I think vitalizing democracy remains a challenge because our society's change and people's expectations change so let's vitalize support for democracy and also vitalize democracy itself but thank you for organizing this inspiring discussion and I look forward to working with you all in the future as well Thank you very much, Kevin, do you have any last thoughts? No, I mean just say that we have to keep up the good work because this is not going away I mean the discussion that we're trying to incite here is not going away anytime soon I mean the struggle to spread the democratic creed will only get tougher in my opinion going forward so if it's going to be a struggle for a long time we might as well start now so I certainly hope that we'll keep the conversation alive not just an international democracy day but every day because this is a struggle where every day counts Thank you Thanks very much, Kevin and when you said it's not going away the struggle I was just thinking democracy isn't going to go away anytime soon and if it is then we're going to struggle even harder so thanks very much both Kevin and Heidi for your active participation here and for the discussion and insightful thoughts that you shared with us and also thanks very much to all the partner organizations and colleagues who have been doing a lot of work to make this work and obviously it's not so easy to do these things online but it works and we can still meet like this and have constructive discussions so thanks for everybody who made this possible and ending on a positive note I think that as the parliament has shown that it can continue to work despite travel restrictions pandemic etc etc I think that in general all the challenges that has come with COVID has shown how quickly we can adapt to new circumstances so I think that's one very positive element to take away from all the negative adaptations we have to make these days when it's really necessary then we can change habits and behavior very quickly and there are plenty of things where we will need to do that in the future in the crisis that is continuing and the crisis that is becoming as Heidi was alluding to so with those words then I would like to close the session and thank everybody for organizing and for participating and reminding people that democracy day is not a war today, it's a contingent struggle and it's a week of democracy day week and it will continue tonight at 6pm I believe with democracy and tech policy so I encourage everybody to log in for that as well so thanks to everybody who followed and we will see each other soon I hope thank you