The first ten years in the history of the Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials (ACEEEO) laid the foundation for the operation of a strong movement that makes the institutional members act and is acknowledged by international organisations. The founding process has completed, a modern Charter has been adopted and the conditions for the operation of a Secretariat have been created. The Association has achieved positive results in organising election observing, supervising and expert missions. The Association faces the following challenges:
I.
The effort to integrate all the countries in the region recognising democratic elections is to continue. Talks with electoral committees outside the region are to be initiated with the aim of achieving a Pan-European election alliance.
II.
The Association's relations with international organisations (UN, OSCE, and EU) are to be drawn up in concrete cooperation agreements. Besides the Council of Europe, the 'consultative status' that is expected to be obtained by the end of the year may set an example to this cooperation. The Association's coordinating office is to be established in Brussels in order to liaise with international organisations on a daily basis.
III.
The efficiency of the projects led by the Association, the intensity of the activities carried out between the annual conferences and the active participation of the institutional members are to be strengthened. For this reason, three regional centres will be established (their number may rise in the future), which shall be in daily contact with the institutional members of the region and shall coordinate all the tasks and information coming from the Secretariat in Budapest. Funds for financing these regional offices in the long run will need to be secured (at the start they will cover the costs of one employee as well as material and communication costs).
IV.
The number of experts is to rise. A group of election experts will have to be made available to be put into action anytime and anywhere in order to provide professional help or election observation and supervision at any stage of the electoral processes.
V.
The Secretariat is to be enabled to provide coordination within the Association, to handle all kinds of information and projects with the highest efficiency and to distribute information to the members. Current information from the Secretariat will be made accessible to the members via the Internet. This task requires further project managers to be employed at the Secretariat.
VI.
Of the running projects, the one related to establishing educational centres for election experts is to be continued (EUROVOTES). The Documentation Centre of the Association is to be further enlarged; online access to the list of all its materials shall be given also via the Internet. The Campaign Financing project is to be finished while the project called 'Media and Elections' started. Within the framework of the Balkan projects help will be provided in establishing the Association of Kosovar Election Officials.
VII.
The financial sources of the above-mentioned activities will need to be secured. For this reason a separate financing project will be started. This project will locate various sources of support of sponsors, institutional members and international organisations thus providing the necessary financial sources.