The coming year could see the Middle East's equivalent of Eastern Europe's post-communism "velvet revolutions", predicts Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott.

"A pro-democracy conference this weekend in the Yemen could have the same impact as the dissident pastors in Eastern Europe who kicked off the velvet revolution in 1989.

If five years ago we had been told that at the beginning of 2004 over 700 representatives, mostly pro-democracy activists, and including 29 watchful ministerial delegations from across the Arab world and beyond, would be gathering in Sana'a, the ancient Islamic capital of Yemen, to discuss Arab democracy, we would never have believed it.

But the course of events - including the tragic incidents of September 11, the breakdown of the Middle East peace process, the conflict in Iraq, and the continuing war on terror - have led to a new dynamic on the Arab street.

Now, the people of the Arab world, none of whose countries, according to the UN, is a democracy, are demanding change, and their autocratic governments are finally listening.

The 2003 United Nations report on Arab human development, written by Arab experts, contained fieldwork surveys in the Arab world, which showed it topping the list of those worldwide who support the statement that "democracy is better than any other form of government", at some 60 per cent, and the highest "rejection of authoritarian rule" at 80 per cent.

In 2004 elections are scheduled for Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Lebanon, Sudan and Tunisia. Recent months have seen increased discussion among Arab intellectuals, and a widening public, about the need for real political change.

In Sana'a at the conference on democracy organised by the Yemeni government, the European Commission and the NGO No Peace Without Justice, this weekend, there has been a late rush of attendance by Arab governments. They are sweeping in to learn from NGOs and representatives from civil society on the ground, about the true state of public opinion in their countries.

Perhaps the highest profile of the conference delegates, Egyptian dissident and human rights defender Professor Saad Ibrahim, has been followed by representatives from the very Egyptian government which arrested him and against which he continues to fight.

The conference is co-sponsored by the European Commission, and indeed it is Europeans who are standing behind reformers in the Arab world. However, this nominal support is not being backed up by real support on the ground. The EU's annual 117 million euro European Democracy Initiative - which I founded in the early 90s to respond to the appetite for change in central and eastern Europe - has hardly been tried in the Arab states.

Unlike other EU funds, the Democracy Initiative can go directly to organisations promoting the rule of law, free media, free and fair elections and human rights, without consulting governments in the countries concerned.

In recent months I have been pressing for a shift of resources within this programme, away from developing countries, where ample EU funds exist for democracy promotion, towards the unstable Arab world to our south.

The Maastricht Treaty formalised the EU's role in "developing and consolidating democracy and the role of law, and to that of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms". This has become one of the main objectives of the EU's Common Foreign Security Policy (CFSP).

Yet, in our own neighbourhood, where security issues must be to the foremost, the EU is absent in promoting stable governments. In recent years the Democracy Initiative has become increasingly bureaucratic and ineffective. The Commission has used it in 32 countries, as far away as Fiji, to support 25 worthy, but far less urgent causes, from support for indigenous peoples to anti-torture campaigns.

At its height in 1997/98, the fund was operating some 1,200 projects. As a result of management and political failures, this has dropped to just 116 authorised in 2002 (the last full year of programming) from some 1110 proposals received.

The large scale project funding that the Commission now prefers lowers the total number of grants and does not promote the bottom-up development of civil societies. Democracy promotion NGOs are still in most cases on a very small scale. Accordingly, project administration must be adapted to the needs of civil society, and not defined just by what is convenient for the Commission, to ensure that local needs are met. The very raison d'être of the Democracy Programme should not be forgotten at the expense of administrative considerations.

It is clear that 2004 will be the year of Arab change. This movement is similar to the quiet convulsion in east and central Europe in 1989, which led to the overthrow of the communist regime across the region. Then the EU's presence played a vital part in this change, let us not miss out on the opportunity to make a similar difference in the Arab world right now."

Edward McMillan-Scott is European Parliament Spokesman on Democracy and Human Rights and Islamic Affairs Spokesman for the majority EPP-ED Group.