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Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis calls on the international community to strengthen and to coordinate more closely the actions that are aimed at promoting democracy around the world. The Minister made this statement on 3 July in Krakow at the High Level Democracy Meeting to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Community of Democracies, which is currently chaired by Lithuania.

“World’s democratic community faces numerous challenges in implementing common goals on a multilateral level and the economic downturn caused new threats to democracy worldwide. Despite the threatening increase of autocratic and populist tendencies in many countries and regions, we do not have an appropriate democratic response to this. The promotion of democracy requires serious and concerted efforts of world’s entire community,” Minister A.Ažubalis said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also attended the meeting in Krakow, dedicated special attention to the human rights situation, particularly highlighting the influence of civil society for the promotion of democracy around the world. H.Clinton stressed the role of values in contemporary world politics as one of the main principles of the current U.S. administration policy. She also spoke about the challenges, which movements for human rights and other civil society groups supporting democracy were facing today.

The meeting in Krakow focused on the activities of the Community of Democracies, on its working groups, and on the strengthening of democracy around the world.

As a representative of Lithuania’s Presidency of the Community of Democracies in 2009-2011, Minister A.Ažubalis acquainted the participants of the meeting with Lithuania’s accomplishments and goals for 2011.

In Krakow, head of Lithuania’s diplomacy also opened the second meeting of the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies, which was launched on 12 March in Vilnius, and highlighted that the debate of parliamentarians should be followed by specific projects. According to the Minister, two more meetings of the Parliamentary Forum are already scheduled this year in the U.S.A. and Georgia.

The Community of Democracies also adopted the Global Democracy Work Plan, which defines the actions for strengthening global democracy in the coming years.

Minister A.Ažubalis stressed that the entire Community of Democracies had to aim to turn these commitments into reality, so that this would not be just empty words.

According to the Minister, the attention of Lithuania’s Presidency and of the entire Community of Democracies will be drawn to this work until the next ministerial meeting of the Community of Democracies in Vilnius in 2011.

“Lithuania aims to achieve that at the Presidency’s final meeting in Vilnius specific decisions will be taken on the basis of the Global Democracy Work Plan. The decisions would cover the reform of the Community of Democracies itself, the commitments undertaken by its member states regarding support to non-governmental organizations, further development of activities of the Working Group on Gender Equality, which is co-chaired by the U.S.A. and Lithuania, and on other issues,” Minister A.Ažubalis said.

75 governmental representatives from around the world, as well as President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek participated in the commemorative meeting on 3 July in Krakow.

Lithuania, as the Presidency of the Community of Democracies, also chaired the meeting of the Convening Group in Krakow. The Convening Group is comprised of representatives from 17 countries, which spearheaded the initiative of establishing the Community of Democracies. This group is the main governing body of the Community of Democracies between the ministerial meetings.

Lithuania has also initiated meetings of the Parliamentary Forum, the Young Leaders’ Forum and the Working Group on Gender Equality of the Community of Democracies.

For more information on Lithuania’s Presidency of the Community of Democracies please visit here.