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ECFR convenes discussion on human rights and democracy in North Africa

With support from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in partnership with the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, Foreign Policy Edición española, FRIDE and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, ECFR hosted a workshop on European support for democracy and human rights in North Africa on Monday 20th September in Barcelona, Spain. The event forms part of ECFR’s project on Rethinking EU support for human rights and democracy, framed in our latest policy brief “Towards an EU Human Rights Strategy for a post-Western world”, authored by ECFR Senior Policy Fellow Anthony Dworkin and ECFR Policy Fellow Susi Dennison.

The aim of this full-day event was to facilitate a realistic and constructive discussion about the effectiveness of EU support for human rights and democracy in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, and the relationship between this support and broader EU policy towards the region. The workshop attracted participants from a range of organisations across the EU and North African countries to the Catalonian capital. This included representatives from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of France, UK, Spain and Slovenia as well as from the European Commission, the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU and from European and North African think tanks, NGOs and academic institutions.

The day was divided into four sessions: “Opportunities for progress”, “Human rights and other goals”, “The role of international actors” and “Looking forward”. These discussions allowed participants to explore EU relations with the region more broadly, investigate the inter-play between EU engagement on human rights and its other strategic priorities and, importantly, to look at concrete proposals for achieving progress on opening political space and achieving greater respect for human rights in North African countries.

To find out more, please click here to access the full workshop report.

To learn more about ECFR’s work on European support for democracy and human rights in the world, please visit our project webpage with our latest podcasts, papers and news on the topic. On this page you will also be able to access the two working papers that set the framework for our discussions in Barcelona.

ECFR co-hosted this workshop in partnership with:

With support from: