Georgia
Georgia’s EU Accession Frozen, Says Brussels’ Envoy to Tbilisi – The Moscow Times
The European Union has halted Georgia’s accession talks amid strained ties over Tbilisi’s controversial “foreign influence” law, the bloc’s top diplomat in the South Caucasus country said Tuesday.
“Regrettably, Georgia’s EU accession process is stopped for now — this has been decided by EU leaders during the last European Council,” said EU Ambassador to Tbilisi Pawel Herczynski.
“It is sad to see EU-Georgia relations at such a low point, when they could have been at an all-time high,” the EU delegation’s X (formerly Twitter) account quoted him as saying.
Brussels has halted 30 million euros ($32.4 million) in financial aid to Georgia and was considering “other measures,” Herczynski added.
The European Union in November recommended that Georgia be granted long-awaited candidate status provided that it meets nine conditions.
Ties have been strained by Tbilisi’s passage of legislation on “foreign influence” in May despite mass street protests against what critics called a Russian-style law aimed at stifling opposition groups and civil society.
EU leaders said last month that Georgia’s law backtracks on the bloc’s recommendations, “de facto leading to a halt of the accession process.”
Georgia’s ruling party has faced widespread accusations of derailing the country from its EU membership path and leading it back toward the Russian orbit.
Russian officials were reported to have welcomed Georgia’s “foreign influence” law with quiet anticipation, while Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov accused the West of plotting to overthrow the Georgian government.
The United States launched a comprehensive review of U.S.-Georgian ties and imposed visa restrictions on those “responsible for or complicit in undermining democracy.”
Last week, the U.S. said it was indefinitely postponing military drills with Georgia amid bilateral tensions.
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Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
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