Denying Georgia EU candidate status is a partisan mistake

June 17, 2022, will doubtless be remembered as a turning level in Georgia’s trendy historical past. On that day, the European Fee lastly gave certified suggestions for European Union candidature to Moldova and Ukraine. Nonetheless, regardless of the nation charting a Euro-Atlantic course for greater than 20 years, it opted to not advocate Georgia for a similar. The choice brought about a lot disappointment in Tbilisi and led many Western-oriented Georgians to begin questioning the belief they place in Brussels.

The Fee’s long-awaited opinion on granting candidate standing to the three former Soviet nations was written in its (in)well-known bureaucratese, filled with double- and triple-speak.

Certainly, at first look, the textual content gives the look that the Fee’s view on Georgia’s candidature is beneficial. However upon shut inspection, it turns into clear that, in contrast to Moldova and Ukraine, it might want to meet an extended listing of circumstances earlier than formally being declared a candidate for EU membership.

The Fee’s many considerations concerning the state of Georgia’s democracy and the factors it needs the nation to fulfill earlier than attaining candidate standing appear to narrate to the conduct of the present Georgian Dream Occasion authorities, successfully managed by billionaire former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili.

In its opinion, the Fee states its misgivings about state seize in Georgia, citing considerations over political polarisation, “oligarchisation”, threats to the independence of the judiciary and state establishments, organised crime, corruption, and lack of press freedom amongst others.

These considerations aren’t unwarranted. Ivanishvili nonetheless dominates Georgian politics and successfully runs the ruling celebration regardless of not holding a proper workplace since 2013. His co-investment fund provides him ample management over the financial system.

He’s additionally growing his management over Georgia’s cultural scene – the internationally acclaimed movie Taming the Backyard, criticising Ivanishvili’s Black Sea pleasure park, for instance, has not too long ago been blacklisted in Georgia for being too “political”. Simply final month, a court docket in Georgia sentenced anchor and proprietor of pro-opposition Mtavari TV, Nika Gvaramia, to a few and a half years in jail, elevating severe questions on each the independence of the judiciary and the state of press freedom within the nation.

The Georgian authorities’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and reluctance to hitch within the West’s financial conflict towards Moscow, additionally added to considerations Brussels already had concerning the state of affairs in Tbilisi. Regardless of overwhelming public strain to take action, the Georgian Dream authorities has refused to implement significant sanctions on the Kremlin, professing considerations a few Russian backlash. The not too long ago leaked recording of an April telephone dialog purportedly between Ivanishvili and sanctioned Russian billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov additional raised eyebrows in Brussels.

In its opinion, the Fee additionally accurately famous that Georgia suffers from political polarisation. Certainly, lately, almost all of the elections within the nation have been an efficient runoff between Ivanishvili and his bête-noir, former President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Broadly identified even within the West as Misha, Saakashvili is a flamboyant political participant. After rising as the important thing chief of Georgia’s 2004 Rose Revolution – the second that put it on its agency pro-Western path after 13 years of stagnation, corruption and civil conflict that adopted the Soviet collapse – Saakashvili turned one thing of a poster boy for the democratic agenda and cultivated a strong partnership with the EU and the US.

Throughout his tenure, he overhauled the police, improved the electoral system and went after organised crime. However he additionally concentrated energy in his personal arms, brutally cracked down on protests, jailed political opponents, and focused opposition-affiliated media.

After he misplaced the 2013 presidential election, he left the nation. However he didn’t disappear from the political scene. On the idea of his repute as an anti-Russian reformer, Ukraine’s then-president, Petoro Poroshenko, granted him Ukrainian citizenship and appointed him as governor of Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast in 2015. He was sacked the next yr.

In 2017, he was arrested whereas trying to flee police throughout Kyiv’s rooftops. Saakashvili would blame oligarchic affect in Ukraine for his falling-out with Poroshenko, and he might nicely have had some extent. However Saakashvili is not any saint, and has been unwilling to surrender his private vendettas, partnering with whoever he thinks can amplify them loudest.

Saakashvili is understandably favoured by the West, however each he and Ivanishvili deserve equal blame for limiting Georgia’s political progress – and the Fee appears to have acknowledged this in its opinion.

All in all, the factors made by the Fee towards Georgia instantly being granted candidate standing look like legitimate. However this doesn’t imply the choice isn’t partisan or dangerous.

Regardless of Georgia’s stunted political and democratic progress, anybody who has paid some consideration to the state of affairs in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova lately can let you know that Tbilisi has made extra progress in approaching European democratic and political requirements than Moldova and Ukraine.

This isn’t to say Chișinău and Kyiv don’t deserve EU candidate standing – they do. However Moldova and Ukraine additionally undergo from oligarchisation, partisan media organisations, and severe challenges to the rule of legislation. Russia has, in spite of everything, spent the final 20 years doing its greatest to make sure that is the case.

Regardless of their plain struggles with democratic progress, the European Fee beneficial Moldova and Ukraine for candidate standing as a symbolic gesture. It ought to have executed the identical for Georgia, regardless of its present authorities’s many missteps and comparatively shut relationship with Russia.

It’s an unspoken actuality that the choice isn’t motivated by a need to see Moldova and Ukraine, or Georgia for that matter, enter the bloc anytime quickly. Candidate standing requires unanimous approval from the prevailing 27 members and backing from the European Parliament. As soon as authorized, it solely begins the accession course of, although that is no assure of progress. Turkey has had candidate standing since 1999, North Macedonia since 2005, Montenegro since 2010, Serbia since 2012, and Albania since 2014. None is anticipated to turn out to be a full member within the foreseeable future.

The choice to grant candidate standing is a signalling effort. Brussels has despatched the incorrect sign to Georgia, one that might trigger the federal government to maneuver additional away from its Euro-Atlantic aspirations – and that emboldens Moscow.

Brussels’ misstep dangers a daunting déjà vu. In April 2008, NATO endorsed the concept of Ukraine and Georgia finally becoming a member of the alliance, however refused to grant a proper membership motion plan. 4 months later, Russia invaded Georgia, nominally in help of the breakaway area of South Ossetia.

Georgians resisted valiantly, however their military was no match for Moscow’s. They have been routed in days. Moscow successfully seized the territory in addition to the area of Abkhazia. Consequently, there was no progress on Georgia’s NATO membership since. Russia’s playbook for Ukraine was written in Georgia.

Brussels’ determination to not advocate Georgia for EU candidate standing will doubtless solely deepen political polarisation within the nation. And the Kremlin will see this as a possibility to extend its affect over Tbilisi.

For the reason that starting of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, Georgians have made it clear that they stand with Ukrainians, and the EU, on this combat. Lots of of Georgians have volunteered to defend Ukraine, Tbilisi is awash with Ukrainian flags, and Georgian enterprise are taking their very own steps to refuse dealings with Russia. Hundreds of Ukrainian refugees discovered a house away from dwelling within the nation.

The Georgian authorities has failed the Georgian folks by refusing to take a robust stance towards Moscow and its brutal invasion. Now, Brussels has additionally failed them by punishing them for the actions of their authorities.

The European Fee’s determination to not advocate Georgia for candidate standing was a short-sighted mistake that not solely Brussels however the whole area will remorse.

The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.