Georgia facing tough questions with bid for EU membership

On Could 10, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili formally handed over a seven-volume tome to the European Union’s ambassador in Tbilisi, Carl Hartzell. Along with one other weighty doc submitted every week earlier, they characterize the Georgian authorities’s solutions to the two,600-point EU questionnaire masking the state of the nation’s politics, economic system and establishments and are supposed to assist assess its readiness to begin the method of accession to the bloc.

Now, over the approaching weeks, the European Fee will put together its suggestions about whether or not Georgia ought to get formal standing as an EU member candidate. The choice may come as early as a European Council summit scheduled for late June, although even when it does it might be years earlier than Georgia would really be part of.

However for advocates of Georgia’s EU accession, even being a candidate would have vital implications for the nation’s growth. 

“Giving a membership promise doesn’t price a lot for the European Union, however that may be vital for us, for the civil society, to maintain the leverage on the Georgian authorities,” Vano Chkhikvadze, EU Integration Program Supervisor at Open Society Georgia Basis, mentioned throughout a Could 12 on-line dialogue of Georgia’s EU prospects. 

Georgia’s software to the EU – a physique that’s supposed to take care of excessive requirements for the democratic credentials of its members – comes amid rising doubts concerning the authorities’s dedication to these requirements.

For years, Georgia was generally seen as a “frontrunner” within the strategy of EU integration in comparison with different post-Soviet states, implementing financial and democratic reforms demanded by Brussels. Georgia signed an Affiliation Settlement, together with a free-trade deal, with the EU in 2014, and in 2017 acquired visa-free journey to the Schengen zone.

Extra lately, nevertheless, relations with the EU have develop into strained. The ruling Georgian Dream celebration campaigned for reelection (efficiently) in 2020 on a promise to begin the EU membership course of in 2024. When the opposition contested the outcomes of these elections, launching a deep, months-long political disaster, the EU stepped in and helped mediate a decision. 

However that settlement quickly collapsed, and relations suffered additional as the federal government did not implement judicial reforms demanded by the EU and turned down an EU mortgage that was conditioned on these reforms.

The nation’s fame for press freedom declined as effectively, because the authorities seemed the opposite manner as far-right mobs beat dozens of journalists masking Delight occasions in 2021. That “solid a shadow” over relations between the bloc and Tbilisi, within the phrases of a bunch of European ambassadors to Tbilisi. 

Tbilisi continued to draw the ire of Brussels by dismantling the State Inspectors Workplace, an unbiased oversight physique, and making judicial appointments in contravention of European suggestions.

However then got here the struggle in Ukraine. Within the wake of Russia’s invasion, the EU inspired Ukraine to speed up its membership drive, together with two different international locations that had been usually on related paths to membership: Moldova and Georgia. 

Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili formally signed Georgia’s software on March 3. 

This course of “must be seen as a part of the EU’s response to the struggle in Ukraine, this isn’t a traditional enlargement course of, it is a deeply geopolitical one,” mentioned Nicholas Cendrowicz, the deputy head of unit within the Directorate-Basic for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations on the European Fee.

Whereas the modified geopolitical circumstances are working in Tbilisi’s favor, some have frightened that they arrive at a clumsy time given the democratic backsliding of late. Many in Tbilisi famous with alarm that the European Parliament has given its formal backing to candidate standing for Ukraine and Moldova however has but to observe go well with for Georgia.

Whereas Georgia’s software will profit from the truth that its economic system is already “largely aligned with that of the EU” and the nation has a “well-functioning public administration” and “very vibrant civil society,” it may endure on account of issues associated to the independence of the judiciary and political polarization, Cendrowicz mentioned through the Could 12 dialogue.

“The rule of regulation and the independence of the judiciary is completely essential in deciding whether or not a rustic is able to be part of the EU,” he mentioned.  “And what has occurred in Georgia over the previous couple of years has not strengthened that independence, I believe quite the opposite.”

That challenge was highlighted on Could 16, when a Georgian courtroom sentenced Nika Gvaramia, the director of an opposition tv community and ally of former president Mikheil Saakashvili, to 3 and a half years in jail on abuse-of-power expenses. The conviction got here at a clumsy second, when Overseas Minister Ilia Darchiashvili was beginning a go to to Brussels to debate the nation’s EU software.

And whereas Georgia is way from the one nation to endure from political polarization, “within the accession context, we have now to say that it’s vital that the nation is ready to develop a consensus,” Cendrowicz mentioned. “The political context in Georgia shouldn’t be actually conducive to having these sorts of regular bread-and-butter and boring discussions about a number of the nuts and bolts of the accession course of.”

Given the “deteriorating relations between Georgia and the EU” occasioned by the unfinished judicial reforms and political squabbling, “this window of alternative won’t have opened up with out Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” mentioned Sonja Schiffers, director of the South Caucasus workplace of the German suppose tank Heinrich Boell Stiftung.

“It’s doable that the member states will determine to grant Georgia solely potential candidate standing, setting political situations for Tbilisi to meet earlier than Georgia could also be granted full candidate standing,” Schiffers informed Eurasianet. “Even potential candidate standing would mark a major development in relations between Georgia and the EU and put extra strain on the Georgian authorities to ship on the democracy agenda.”