On August 13th, 2025, the FGV Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ programme, in partnership with the FGV Centre for Global Law, was honored to welcome Professor Régis Dandoy, professor of comparative politics and director of the Centre for European Studies at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador).

Professor Dandoy’s lecture addressed the EU missions of election observation, with a focus on Latin America. He began by defining what a mission of election observation is and presenting its historical origins and current framework. The process involves independent observers assessing whether the elections are held in an independent, fair, transparent and credible manner. Ultimately, the aim is to support democratization, either nationally or in a third country. 

Then, Professor Dandoy highlighted the different types of EU missions of election observation and analyzed the data on their main characteristics, such as duration, location and type of elections. 14 Latin American countries have hosted said missions – Brazil is not among them. Notably, he clarified that this measure is not unilateral: an invitation from the host country is required. 

Through a research design that compared the quality of the electoral processes of countries observed and not observed by the EU, Professor Dandoy concluded that the impact of such missions on the quality of democracy is poor. He referred to a possible country selection bias, which suggests that the EU tends to go to countries already undergoing democratization. 

We sincerely thank Professor Régis Dandoy for sharing his expertise on this highly relevant subject.