EPDE Supports Council of Europe’s Paris Call to Action for Stronger Protection of Election Observation
EPDE members from Armenia, Georgia, Germany, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine joined policymakers, representatives of election management bodies, and national ministries at the high-level conference “Towards Trusted and Inclusive Electoral Processes: The Role of Observers” in Paris on 28-29 April 2026 to address challenges to election observation and contribute to a coherent international framework for election observation in […]
EPDE at the Council of Europe | How Institutions Can Resist Capture and Rebuild Trust: Lessons from PACE
On 28–29 April 2026, the Council of Europe, together with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, and the Venice Commission, held a high-level conference in Paris under the New Democratic Pact for Europe. The event brought together policymakers, election bodies, and civil society, including members […]
Update from the EPDE Secretariat
On 1 May, Adam Busuleanu, our long-standing Team Lead and Program Manager, will be leaving the European Exchange and the EPDE Secretariat team. Adam joined the European Exchange in 2008 and has since made an invaluable contribution to the growth and direction of our work. He was instrumental in shaping the European Exchange’s election observation activities and played a central role in building EPDE from its founding in […]
Russian Election Monitor: Kremlin’s new fake electoral observation ecosystem: From domestic mimicry to global scaling
The Russian State Duma elections in September 2026 will become a major testing ground for the Kremlin’s new institutionalized strategy of international observation. However, it seems that the ultimate goal is not the Duma elections as such, but the creation of a permanent, scalable model of authoritarian legitimation. On 14-15 April 2026, Moscow hosted the […]
Citizens’ perceptions of hate speech during the parliamentary elections of 28 September 2025
Data from monitoring carried out by the Promo-LEX Association from 2018 to the present hasdemonstrated not only that hate speech is a frequent phenomenon in the Republic of Moldova,but also that the process of prevention and combating it has required legislative changes, andafter 2022 requires the streamlining of the reporting – documentation – sanctioning cycle. […]
Azerbaijan | Free Anar Mammadli: Two Years of Arbitrary Detention Must End
On 29 April 2024 – two years ago tomorrow – Anar Mammadli, EPDE co-founder and head of our Azerbaijani member organization, the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDS), was detained by Azerbaijani authorities on politically motivated charges. Anar remains in detention under escalated and unsubstantiated accusations, emblematic of the repressive environment facing civil society […]
Petition: For a Citizen Election Observation System for Hungary – THE TIME IS NOW!
Hungary: Post-Election Round Table “Conclusion and Findings from the Parliamentary Elections in Hungary”
On April 13, 2026, following E-day, EPDE hosted a high-level round table discussion on Hungary’s 2026 parliamentary elections, with representatives of the diplomatic corps, civil society and think tanks. The speakers, Stefanie Schiffer (Chair of Board, EPDE), Marta Pardavi (Co-chair, Hungarian Helsinki Committee), Michael Meyer-Resende (Executive Director, Democracy Reporting International), Zsofia Banuta (Co-founder, Unhack Democracy), […]
Russian Election Monitor: “Fake Observation for Fake Elections. Now ‘International'”
The Kremlin has launched what it calls the first “independent international association” for electoral monitoring. Formed at a conference in Moscow with delegates from 60 countries, this body is designed to provide an alternative to Western observation standards, which Sergei Lavrov and Ella Pamfilova dismiss as “politicized.” Non-Interference or Non-Observation? The association’s primary goal is […]
