report in Dhaka Tribune online, Sept 21, 2023
The European Union may not send an observer team to the upcoming national parliamentary polls in Bangladesh which is likely to be held in January.

A senior EU official in Dhaka disclosed the information to Dhaka Tribune on Thursday.

He said the decision was taken by the European Union based on the report prepared by their pre-monitoring team.

The EU has already informed the Bangladesh government.

An official statement in this regard may come from the EU headquarters in Brussels within two days.

The EU official did not make further comment in this regard.

A 6-member team of Election Exploratory Mission (ExM) from the European Union (EU) visited Bangladesh from July 8 to 23 at the invitation of the Election Commission (EC).

The delegation mainly assessed the scope, planning, budget, logistics and security aspects of the election observation mission.

The delegation held separate meetings with representatives of the Bangladesh government, the Election Commission, law enforcement agencies, political party leaders, civil society and media representatives.

During the long visit, the delegation of the EU mission tried to understand what kind of qualitative difference has been created from the 2014 and 2018 elections to the next national elections.

Along with that, the EU delegation tried to find out whether the parties would participate in the election process or not. https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/foreign-affairs/325914/uncertainty-looms-over-eu-sending-observers-in