On 3 October, the European Union jointly with the Council of Europe (CoE) announced their plans to implement two projects in Azerbaijan for a total of 1.6 million euros in 2019-2021, reported azernews.
The projects aim to assist Azerbaijan's institutions in strengthening their institutional capacity to fight corruption and prevent it. They will also support judicial reforms to enhance the independence and professionalism of the judiciary, criminal justice reforms and apply CoE standards. In addition, Azerbaijan will become part of three regional projects worth 1.8 million euros. These projects will focus on combating economic crime, discrimination and fair justice against women.
The projects have been prepared as part of the second phase of the Partnership for Good Governance programme with the Eastern Partnership Countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine). The project's main goal was to improve those countries’ domestic legislation and capacities in accordance with the Council of Europe and European Union standards by supporting the on-going processes of reform of local government. The five main themes of the cooperation are: protection and promotion of human rights, ensuring justice, combating threats to the rule of law, addressing challenges of the information society, and promoting democratic governance. The project is divided into two successive phases (the first from 2015-2018 and the second from 2019-2021) with a total budget 36 million euros for the first phase, and 17.5 million euros for the second. The activities within the project include: legislative reviews, conferences, seminars, working groups, networking, and training sessions.
As part of the first phase of the Partnership for Good Governance programme, four projects were implemented in Azerbaijan in 2015-2018, aimed at ensuring freedom of the media, improving the efficiency of the justice system, application of the European Convention on Human Rights and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, and strengthening the fight against money laundering.
