Committee

First Coordination Committee Meeting of EU- Funded programme Enhanced Support to Democratic Governance in Jordan.

“EU Support to Jordanian Democratic Institutions and Development ” programme, funded by the European Union (EU) and by one of its Member States, Spain, organised its first Co-ordination Committee meeting on Monday 9th of October at King Hussein Club, Amman. The meeting was Co-chaired by H.E. Ambassador Andrea Matteo Fontana, Head of Delegation of the EU to Jordan and MP Khamees Attieh, First Deputy Speaker of House of Representatives (HoR).  

The Co-ordination committee meeting is aimed to ensure the best oversight and coordination within this innovative and comprehensive democratic governance programme for Jordan. Enhancing synergies and ensuring coherence and coordination, while avoiding duplication of efforts are key concepts of the EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy (2015-2019). These notions were at the core of the Co-ordination Committee meeting. 

In particular, the first Co-ordination committee meeting aimed to discuss the implementation of  EU Support to Jordanian Democratic Institutions & Development, EU-JDID. The meeting also allowed to present the work plan for the years 2017-2018, agreed upon during the Steering Committees conducted in September 2017. 

“Through this unified programme, the EU is increasing its democracy support while offering a holistic and comprehensive approach, which includes all key institutions, actors and elements of democratic governance into one single Programme”, H.E. EU Ambassador Mr. Fontana claimed during the opening remarks of the event. “It is worth to highlight that Jordan is one of the first countries where this innovative approach is used,” he added. 

The Spanish Deputy Head of Mission, Mr. Tomàs Lopez Vilariño, highlighted the strong Spanish Jordanian relations. “Jordan, a country that we do admire its brave work” he added. He also stressed on the significant role of the civil society organisations in the political reform process by mentioning that the “health” of institutions is directly connected to “healthy” civil society. 

Mrs. Monica Frassoni, President of European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES), noted that the main purpose of the Programme is to strengthen democratic governance in Jordan, which is playing its role as a key contributor to regional peace, stability and security.  With regard to EU-JDID, Mrs. Frassoni claimed that the engagement in this country has advanced quickly over the past few months of Project implementation and intend to keep this pace. 

On behalf of H.E. Atef Tarawneh, MP Khamees Attieh, First Deputy Speaker of the HoR, Co-Chair of the Coordination Committee meeting. He stressed on the importance of promoting political pluralism and moving towards legislative reforms to enhance democracy and freedom. 

H.E. Dr. Khaled Kaladeh, Chairman of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) expressed his gratitude to the support provided by the EU to Jordan and in particular to the institution since its creation. Over the years, the IEC consolidated its institutional structure as well its credibility. The recent elections of August 2017, reaffirmed once more the willingness of the institution to collaborate with the EU, through the EU funded Project EU-JDID, in order to implement credible and transparent elections. The collaboration with the EU will also allow to the IEC, which has now “graduated” to “post-graduate”, thus becoming a reference for the other electoral commissions in the region and in the world. 

H.E. Eng. Moussa Ma'ayta, Minister of Political and Parliamentary Affairs (MoPPA), underlined that the ministry fully embraces the values of democratic governance, transparency and the rule of law, which are embedded in the vision of the programme. H.E. Eng. Ma'ayta added that Jordan has adopted a political reform agenda, and that EU-JDID is contributing to the implementation of the envisaged e-Government, which is an important element of this process. The Minister concluded his speech by confirming the important role played by political parties in a democratic, pluralistic, and inclusive political system.

"EU Support to Jordanian Democratic Institutions and Development” aims at supporting Jordan's reform process towards consolidation of democracy and at promoting inclusiveness of national policy and decision-making processes. The Programme also intends to enhance women and youth inclusion and to foster a stronger democratic and tolerant political culture.

The project, which is composed of four components is managed by two entities, a consortium which is led by ECES and includes four European non-profit organisations: European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WfD), Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) and French Agency for Media Cooperation (CFI), and the fourth components which is managed by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID)