the expulsion of EU diplomats from Belarus in February 2012; urges the Union and all of its Member States to remain coherent and consistent in their policies towards Belarus, and to keep up the pressure on the political regime, including through sanctions, among others against enlisted officials, while reaching out to civil society through such tools as enhanced visa facilitation and increased education, training and other exchange opportunities; expresses strong concern over Ales Bialiatski’s imprisonment since 4 August 2011; regrets the actions of the Polish and Lithuanian officials who allowed Ales Bialiatski to be arrested through the forwarding of banking information, and calls for utmost efforts by all actors in the EU to prevent a repetition of such mistakes; 53. Urges the EU to apply the same consistent approach towards human rights abuses in all third countries, both partner countries and countries with which the EU has a lessdeveloped relationship; insists that the EU be vocal in pointing out and condemning human rights violations whenever and wherever they occur, regardless of the level or strategic importance of partnership with the country concerned; emphasises that the EU should use financial aid and economic relations as a leverage mechanism to ensure the commitment to the universal values of human rights of all its partners; EU policies to support democratisation and elections 54. Emphasises the mutually reinforcing nature of human rights and democracy, as it is through respect for human rights that societies create the free political space needed for peaceful democratic contestation; welcomes in this regard the increased EU focus on democracy support as illustrated by the recently established European Endowment for Democracy; 55. Underlines that a longer-term approach covering the whole election cycle is required to appropriately follow up on the reports and recommendations of the EU Election Observation Missions; stresses the importance of drawing up realistic and achievable recommendations and of ensuring that these recommendations are monitored – and become part of the political dialogue and assistance offered – by the EU delegations; considers that Parliament’s standing delegations and the joint parliamentary assemblies should also play an enhanced role in following up these recommendations and analysing progress with regard to human rights and democracy; encourages EU election observation missions (EOMs) to reinforce their coordination with other international election observation missions so as to improve the coherence of EU action in this respect; stresses that the EU needs to invest in the training of local observers in order to build sustainable and autonomous electoral processes in third countries; outlines the fact that the transition to democracy, as well as progress in promoting human rights, calls for long-term strategies and may not yield visible results in the short term; encourages, therefore, the Commission and the EEAS to monitor more than one election cycle in detail by deploying EU EOMs to countries that move from authoritarian regimes to democratic regimes or that register serious lapses in their progress towards democracy; 56. Reiterates its call on the Council and the Commission to develop a coherent, long-term strategy in relation to each EU election observation mission, followed up by an assessment of democratic progress two years after the mission, with due involvement of the concerned election observation Chief Observer, to be debated during Parliament’s annual human rights debate with the VP/HR; recalls the commitment of the VP/HR to focus, in election observation missions, on the participation – both as candidates and as voters – of women