Publication

This paper details the August 2005 meeting in Georgia between that country's president, Mikhail Saakashvili, and President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine. The pair met to discuss the launch of an initiative to promote democracy among a community of like-minded states in Central and Eastern Europe. The author explains how the initial gathering led to a further meeting in Kiev in December 2005, with participants from a wider group of former Soviet countries. The paper describes how the participants adopted a declaration announcing the creation of a Community of Democratic Choice (CDC) as a governmental and non-governmental forum to promote the strengthening of democracy, human rights and civil society. The author suggests that although the objectives of CDC are clear enough, it is still unclear what precisely the CDC will do and how it will define the mechanisms of its future actions. The paper hence presents an idea that could become a tangible core project for the CDC.