Sharing European experience with non-European countries
The Commission is a unique international body which facilitates dialogue between countries on different continents. Created in 1990 as a Partial Agreement the Commission was transformed into an Enlarged one in 2002. Since this date several non-European countries became full members of the Commission. The new statute and the financial support provided by the European Union and several member-States of the Council of Europe gave a possibility to develop full-scale co-operation programmes with Central Asia, Southern Mediterranean and Latin America.
In Central Asia the Venice Commission developed several bilateral and regional projects in such fields as constitutional assistance, constitutional justice, reform of the judiciary and electoral legislation and practice. National authorities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan engaged in a constructive dialogue with the Commission and the number of concrete actions has been constantly increasing in the past ten years.
The Commission actively co-operates with countries of Southern Mediterranean region. It established contacts with Arab countries even before the Arab Awakening and this farsightedness proved very useful. After the Arab spring the Commission established a very good co-operation with Morocco and Tunisia. Successful projects in these countries helped to establish and to develop a dialogue with other countries of the region such as Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine* and Libya.
Latin American countries have been always interested sharing experiences and best practices in such fields as democratic transition, constitution-building, constitutional justice and electoral legislation and practice with Europe. The Venice Commission became crucial for making such dialogue possible. In recent years the Commission and with its partners in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru prepared and successfully carried out activities and projects in the above-mentioned fields. Supported by the EU the Commission also successfully completed a project focussed on implementation of the new constitution in Bolivia in 2011 - 2012.
This action of the Commission in Central Asia and Southern Mediterranian was possible thanks to the financial support received by the Commission from the European Union and voluntary contributions from Finland, France, Italy, Norway and Türkiye.
Overview of activities by region:
_______________________________________________________________
* This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of Council of Europe and European Union member States on this issue.