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Drawing on decades of experience human rights defenders are sounding an alarm bell. Will it be a wake-up call for European institutions?

We believe Leyla Yunus would be an excellent winner of the 2014 prize, on behalf of the community of beleaguered human rights defenders in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan has made a mockery of the Council of Europe and its role in defending the European Convention on Human Rights

Any person caught up in a political trial in Turkey enters the world of Kafka's famous novel. This is what happened to Mehmet Orgen, a captain in the Turkish navy.

In the past five years opposition to enlargement has deepened in every single EU member state. Can it still be a win-win policy?

A wave of arrests has exposed the weakness and capture of international institutions such as the Council of Europe. It is also challenging the international human rights movement.

With its focus on manufacturing and exports, Timisoara weathered the economic crisis much better than less industrial areas of South East Europe. Instead of collapsing, its industrial sector restructured.

We do want to encourage leaders in democratic Europe to defend the core values which the current regime in Baku rejects

The world remains a geopolitical jungle. It is worth, however, remembering today how easily the great European enlargement could not have happened.

Ilham Aliyev is winning. His concerted campaign to undermine European democratic standards and the institutions that uphold them is working.

No one can legitimately ask Ukrainians, Moldovans, and Georgians to give up their European perspective just to please the Kremlin

The ultimate goal remains to complete the transformation of the European bloodlands of the 20th century into an integrated democratic continent for the 21st

There is no room for complacency in either Chisinau or in EU capitals. Moldova's "success" remains fragile. It has not yet translated into concrete improvements felt by its citizens.

Is election observation all a matter of personal opinion? Can parliamentarians sniff election fraud, simply because they are parliamentarians? This argument is absurd. 

Non-implementation of the Sejdic-Finci decision does not justify blocking Bosnia and Herzegovina's application for EU membership

The 50th anniversary of the Ankara Agreement is an appropriate occasion for both the EU and Turkey to get serious about the European idea of free movement and to make it a reality for Turkey's young generation

Visa liberalisation has been a crucial element in the EU's relations with Romania, Serbia and Albania. Yet until recently it had not even appeared on the agenda of talks between Brussels and Ankara.

The key message from all international observers, and in particular from the European Union, must be that all Albanian institutions must rigorously respect the laws they themselves have adapted

When will Azerbaijani citizens be able to look back at political arrests and authoritarian rule in Baku with the same sense of amazement that Victor Hugo predicted for the future?

If the countries that have undergone a formal visa liberalisation process are declared safe countries of origin, EU member states can provide for an accelerated examination procedure when dealing with claims from their citizens