Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – (DE) Madam President, I, too, wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs De Keyser, for her excellent report. This report has a normative section and an operative section. In the normative section, we try to establish a European consensus on what, from our point of view, constitutes democracy, what it absolutely must encompass. The Council has been unable to come to such agreement for years, because the Member States have very different traditions. Nonetheless, I believe that we can all agree that what we have included in recitals C to O are clearly elements of democracy which must be taken into account when promoting democracy.

The operative section deals with the instruments. What instruments are available to us? The EIDHR has been mentioned. We find that it is often too slow, too bureaucratic, too complicated and has scope for improvement. The Instrument for Stability could also be faster. The report states that we always react in an immediate and integrated manner to situations; however, it took weeks before election workers could be sent to Tunisia to provide technical assistance under the Instrument for Stability. There is still a lot of work to do here. That is why the European Endowment for Democracy is being discussed, because we want a faster, more flexible instrument. I believe – and this is important and applies to all the groups – that there are some who are more enthusiastic, while others are somewhat more reticent. We need clarification from the European External Action Service, from the Commission and from the Polish Presidency of the Council, which considers this an important project. Where are the boundaries between the instruments that we have and what a European Endowment for Democracy is supposed to do? Who does what with which instruments and when?

Mr Howitt addressed the question of election observations in this context. I believe that this is very important. Please look at paragraphs 60 to 63: they contain this House’s view on election monitoring. We want stringent criteria for selecting countries; we are of the opinion that they are not always stringent enough. We want comprehensive political concepts. We want recommendations to be followed-up. I think these are some of the points that need to be highlighted.

What happens next? This report contains numerous calls for action, by the EEAS and by Parliament. How can we make sanctions more effective? How can we make the instruments more effective? What are we doing for women and democracy, for gender equality? What are we doing in the EEAS delegations across the world? There are numerous calls for action to be drawn from this report. Let us get to work.