Vera Pachta is Programme Officer in the Eastern Europe team under Europe Programme. She is implementing the International IDEA activities within the USAID “Rada: Next Generation” Programme (RANG), focusing on supporting the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on citizens engagement, parliamentary education, communication and cybersecurity, including through outreach to the European Parliament.  

In her former role, Vera contributed to International IDEA´s partnership with the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU in releasing a policy paper titled “Towards an enlarged union: upholding the rule of law”. This paper guided the discussions among Europe ministers at the informal General Affairs Council (Brussels, 29-30 April 2024). It provides policy recommendations to advance the rule of law and democracy within the European Union (EU) and in its enlargement policy, ensuring this way that fundamental values remain at the core of an enlarged EU

Previously, Vera worked as Programme Officer of 'Swedish EU-Presidency 2023 & the Democracy Agenda: Informing & Improving Implementation of EU Democracy Policies' project, supported by the Swedish Government. In the framework of the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU (January-June 2023), the project aimed at gathering comprehensive feedback from global democracy actors to analyze the relevance and coherence of key EU external democracy policies.

Before joining International IDEA in June 2022, Patcha worked as Interim Director and Advocacy Manager at the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (2015-2022). She was a researcher at OGP Independent Research Mechanism in the Czech Republic (2017-2019) and an external evaluator for the Transition Promotion Program in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic (2016-2021). Patcha worked as Senior Research Fellow (2008-2015) at the European Institute for European Policy.

She was the holder of the 2014 PASOS Think Tank Award for the policy paper Taking Stock of the EU Civil Society Funding in the Eastern Partnership Countries.