This year the Czech Republic, together with nine other EU Member States, celebrates 10 years of EU membership. This decade was preceded by many years of preparation to the accession, which transformed the countries and fostered their democratic transitions. This experience is often called “the return to Europe” and warrants sharing in a context of the numerous democratic transitions in the EU neighbourhood.

The objective of this second edition conference commemorating Václav Havel’s work was to examine what the EU means to neighbouring countries in terms of democratic development. Inspired by the 2013 edition, this event was an opportunity to look at two concrete examples of countries currently in transition, Ukraine and Tunisia, each of which held crucial elections on the 26^th October 2014.

Each panel was introduced by a member of the European Parliament and representatives from civil society who shared their thoughts on the experience of democratic transition. This paved the way for a discussion on how to take advantage of these often hard-learned lessons and offer the support of democratic transitions in other countries and thus carry on Václav Havel´s vision and legacy. Panellists for both countries shared also their experience of observing recent elections.