Georgia’s Accession to EU: Telling Tbilisi’s Propaganda and Current Realities Apart

Market Leader informed

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia and the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council commenced official negotiations on preparation for the issue of Georgia gaining EU associate membership. This effort is made within the Eastern Partnership initiative – a special project intended to bring the European Union and six post-soviet states closer (such as Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia).

What is the EU Eastern Membership program essentially about? The program is intended to help the EU establish special relations with its neighbors, in this particular case – in the east. This policy is not an expression of a certain strategic vector and in no way means any special preferences that Europeans may have to these 6 states, including Georgia, as explained by experts of the Masterforex-V Trading Academy. On the contrary, Eastern Partnership is put in practice together with other, similar projects: the Northern Dimension and the Union for the Mediterranean. The former is to strengthen dialog with Northern countries that are not part of the EU (Iceland, Norway, Russia). The latter is to find common ground with nations of the Mediterranean basin.

There’s one, very pragmatic purpose behind such foreign political initiatives of the EU: evade the debate over the above nations’ potential direct membership in the European Union by sidetracking the discussion of this critical issue to endless negotiations on visa agreements, preparation of free trade agreements, mutual assurances of strategic partnership etc. Ultimately, such communication will invariably involve a promise to consider the possibility of giving a certain country some sort of a special status in relationships with the EU. It is such negotiations that recently started with the Georgian state.

A brief history of European-Georgian negotiations on EU associate membership.
Despite a long-standing habit of Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s President, to speak with the European Union’s flag as his background, serious partnership relations between his country and this international entity have a rather short history.
- 26 May 2008: Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski presented the Eastern Partnership project to the EU Council on General Issues and Foreign Relations.
- Almost a year later, 7 May 2009: Prague hosted a constituent meeting within the new program.
- Another year later, 15 July 2010: Batumi started the first plenary session on an associate membership agreement between Georgia and the European Union. To this end, Baroness Catherine Ashton arrived in the Caucasus to hold negotiations with the country’s President Mikheil Saakashvili and Georgia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Grigol Vashadze.
- Finally, the second plenary session on this issue was held in Brussels in October this year.

How realistically close is Georgia to associate membership in the European Union? The very fact that commencement of negotiations with Georgia on associate relationships was formally approved by ministers for foreign affairs of 27 EU member-states can be regarded as an achievement in itself. However, it is obviously propagandist by nature and is intended to create another newsmaker. (Georgia-EU negotiations have been under way since July but were approved only in October). In terms of real progress the following can be pointed out:

1. Updated bilateral legislation and complex institutional development.
* The word ‘bilateral’ in this phrase is kind of ‘tongue-in-cheek’ because it is absolutely clear that the EU will change nothing in its laws. What the European Union will have to change in its documents is the form alone: the list of EU members or partners within a number of programs will now include Georgia.
* Georgia, on the other hand, will have to harmonize its laws with EU standards. This is undoubtedly a positive outcome of the latest meeting.
* Experts of the Masterforex-V Trading Academy believe that Georgian President M. Saakashvili can have no problems with harmonization of the legislative field with EU standards as he control the constitutional majority in the parliament prepared to pass the necessary resolution in a lawful constitutional way anytime.

2. The problem of ‘promoting people's mobility’ during Georgia-EU negotiations.
* It’s all about the notorious simplification of visa regime. Everything looks rather impressive at first glance: the Committee on Freedom, Justice and Internal Affairs of the European Parliament recommending simplification of the visa regime between Georgia and the European Union. Such steps are made in the context of bilateral regulation of legal migration and clampdown on illegal migration.
* It is recommended to simplify the procedure of visa issue for Georgian citizens. Now the document allowing entry of cherished Europe may well half in price and cost about 30 euros. In addition, the application of a person who wants to go to the Old World should be considered within a maximum of ten days. Students and cultural figures will be allowed to cross EU borders without any visas altogether.
* It should be noted, however, that the European Parliament has made no resolution on this issue so far.
* Even if this project acquires the status of a law it’s rather hard to speak of its actual enforcement. Georgia has no advocate in Europe (Poland is now significantly revising its foreign policies), no country that has historical or ethnic roots in common with it (like Romania and Moldova, Poland, Ukraine and Belarus) and would be interested in inviting a larger number of migrants. That’s why ‘mass tourism’ is a rather farfetched idea even on the local level. Everything may well end up in numerous visa refusals with no reasons provided (any EU country is entitled to this within antiterrorism effort). The situation may change only if Europe suddenly feels shortage of workforce. However, even then it is unlikely to seek workers it needs in Georgia.

3. ‘Energy security’ issues raised during Georgia-EU negotiations.
* The already customary concern of European partners about continuous supply of energy carriers to their nations. What Eastern Partnership member states are required is only guarantees that obligations they have assumed will be performed. Nobody in Europe wants another round of the notorious Gas Wars.

Purpose behind negotiations over Georgia’s associate membership in the EU. What is the difference between this and a full membership in the European Union?

In fact, fundamental documents of the European Union refer to no such notion as ‘associate membership’ in the EU. There are different EU association agreement versions:
1. A Stabilization and Association Agreement. Signed by and between the EU and Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia which are potential candidates for membership in the EU. Croatia, Turkey and Macedonia passed this stage earlier and now have a high status of candidates for membership in the EU.
2. The so-called European agreements executed by and between the EU and East European nations.
There are also other types association agreements but, unfortunately, they hold no prospects for membership in this influential supranational entity. Sad as it may sound, there are only a few legal membership forms in the European Union: a potential candidate, a candidate country and a member state. And nothing else.

No global conclusions, as a result, should be made from that fact that the EU and Georgia hold negotiations. This is surely a major foreign political step for M. Saakashvili intended to maintain his image of a ‘pro-Westerner’ and a ‘Democrat’. At the same time, the country’s opposition is left without one of its major trumps, kind of the West ‘got sick and tired of the unpredictable President’. In general, the desire to sign some kind of an Agreement of Associate Membership in the European Union usually comes to leaders of post-soviet states towards election times. This is what the electoral campaign of Moldova's President, communist Mikhail Voronin, was recently marked by. This move, however, didn’t help him keep power. As concerns Brussels, it is simply prone to allow its Eastern partners to indulge in such minor things.
European aspirations of free Georgia bring up a funny joke: “When’s the time for Ukraine to become an EU member?” - “Right after Turkey” – “When’s the time for Turkey?” - “Never”. Well, what does Ukraine have to do with it? It must be remembered that Kiev started such negotiations way before Tbilisi. And where’s the fruit?

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