Last week the Community of Democracies, a global intergovernmental organization, followed up its headline July conference in Kraków with an inaugural Parliamentary Forum in Washington DC. 

The US Capitol building hosted several high ranking US Congressmen (including Senator John McCain and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi), EU Parliament officials (via a video link from Brussels), current and former Central and Eastern European Parliamentarians as well as leading human rights leaders, academics and activists.

According to several speakers, democracy is being challenged like never before. Negative effects of the global recession, growing social inequality and legitimization of several semi authoritarian regimes have all put serious strains on democracy’s development and progress.

What is worse, international bodies like the UN Human Rights Council prefer non-confrontation and simply refuse to engage with some of its nastiest offenders. Among the many issues discussed was the need to fight democratic regression in countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Russia.

At the very heart of strengthening democracy, civil society and human rights, the missing link seems to be a strong US-EU response and alliance. Although individual EU members like Poland and Sweden have made important contributions, critical partners like Germany and Italy choose to look the other way, preferring national energy security and economic interests over European authority and leadership.

One Polish official mentioned that the most effective way to strengthen democracy is to build and develop knowledge and awareness among local populations. As such, the media should be used as a critical tool, partner and proliferate voice.

The cornerstone of any successful democracy is an open and free press. But with growing harassment of Ukrainian journalists as well as an upcoming presidential election in Belarus to cover, the concluding chapter of Eastern Europe’s democratic Odyssey may be far from written.

From the looks of it, one would think that Polish officials have embarked on a US publicity tour. Fresh on the heels of Vice President Biden’s trip to Poland (one of several Central European stops), the future of US-Polish relations has once again re-emerged onto the Washington policy agenda.  This is happening, amidst the multitude of 20 year post-communist transition commemorations taking place throughout Washington DC’s embassies, think tanks and universities.

In addition to a high-level visit by Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, Washington is hosting three separate conferences on the EU Eastern Partnership, lessons from post-communist economic transitions and future of US-Central European relations. In all three, from economics to energy and military security, Poland will be a prominent case study and its current and former government officials will be major participants.

These upcoming gatherings of key US, EU and Polish policymakers can set a major tone, affecting the future of US-Polish, US-EU, and international relations for years to come. A gathering of this magnitude at this point in world history is of great consequence, and an opportunity that should not be wasted.