Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the progress of the Paraguayan authorities toward full implementation of the 30 recommendations set out in the final report of he EU Election Observation Mission in Paraguay following the general election held in that country on 21 April 2013.

An EU Election Follow-Up Mission was deployed to Paraguay in April 2015 to assess the progress made in the implementation of the 2013 EU Election Observation Mission (EU EOM). At that time it considered that there had been "significant progress" in the implementation of the EU EOM recommendations since the 2013 general elections. However, as the Preliminary Statement for the EU EOM after the April 2018 election points out, full implementation of all recommendations has not yet been achieved, including those aimed at strengthening the independence and transparency of public institutions, the control of political party financing, as well as at increasing the participation and representation of women in public life.