"We would like to see Bangladesh return to democracy and elected government provided the conditions are there to hold free, fair and credible elections," said Stephan Frowein, EU ambassador in Dhaka, at a press conference to mark Europe Day at a city hotel.

German Envoy Frank Meyke, representing the current EU presidency, said the EU is encouraged by the Election Commission's (EC) proposed electoral reforms, particularly the move to register political parties and ensure intra-party democracy.

EU is currently the largest development cooperation partners of Bangladesh, disbursing well over Tk 3,900 crore in 2006 alone. British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury said they support the caretaker government as long as they are "working towards holding free and fair elections and leaving behind an infrastructure and a set of reforms to ensure a sustainable democracy and high standard of elections in the future".

Meyke noted that though it is expected that political parties themselves should move towards democratising their party structures, political reform involves all democratic stakeholders as well.

French Ambassador Jacques Andre-Costilhes, Danish Ambassador Einar Jense, Netherlands Ambassador Kees Beemsterboer, Italian Ambassador Pietro Ballero and Swedish Ambassador Britt Faikman Hagstrom attended the press conference, alongside six other honorary consul-generals and consuls.

Regarding the human rights situation, Choudhury said, "When we look at the overall data, we can see a slight improvement." He added that it is evident in decreasing crossfire deaths.

He, however, said that "it (human rights situation) is still not a satisfactory situation" and that they are still closely monitoring individual incidents. He added that the EU is referring individual human rights cases to the caretaker government and they have been resolving the matter.

Asked to comment on the reported restrictions on BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's movement and the overturned ban on Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina's return, he said, "Though we have to bear in mind that there is a state of emergency it is unfortunate to have restrictions on movement and expression."

"We would not like to comment on an internal security matter of Bangladesh," he added.

The British high commissioner said that the government would have to make the day-to-day judgement on keeping a balance between maintaining security and safeguarding the individual rights to freedom of expression.

Replying to a query whether they still have confidence in the government's judgement after its 'U-turn' on sending Hasina, Meyke said they would rather not pass judgement on a host government's security policies, but added that an ability to shift positions shows they are flexible enough to learn from their mistakes and redress them immediately.

Asked to comment on the press freedom under the state of emergency, he said that phone calls by intelligence agencies to the media outlets would amount to sabotage against the government. "It is the wrong kind of press policy," he said.

Describing the chief adviser's meeting with the media leaders earlier this week as an 'encouraging confidence building measure', Meyke said that a lot of it would be undone by trying to inhibit press freedom.

Anwar Choudhury said he does not agree with some observers' position that the country is being run by the military, saying that there is a civilian government in place which is being assisted by the military and supported by the people.

Regarding the election timeframe, he said that the EC announcement to hold elections sets the end of 2008 as the perimeter which means elections could be held at any point between January 2008 and the year's end.

He also said that under the Fakhruddin-led government, conditions have improved for implementing development projects and a situation is in place for more efficient and effective investment and trade.

Frowein in his opening statement said that Brussels is mulling a revised and development-friendly Rules of Origin that govern the import of Bangladeshi goods to the EU, which stood at 5 billion euros in 2006.

He also touched on EU commitments to strike a fair deal for the 'least-developed' countries such as Bangladesh at the WTO Doha Development.

Meyke in his introductory remarks as the envoy of Germany, which holds the current EU presidency, mentioned EU-Bangla cooperation in combating climate change, trade, in the UN and other multilateral organisations, and shared obligations to protect human rights and democracy.