On June 23, the European Council (EC) turned down Georgia’s software for European Union (EU) candidate standing, a penultimate step within the means of becoming a member of the bloc, sending shockwaves throughout a rustic whose politics are outlined by the wrestle for Europeanization. Including insult to harm, candidate standing was granted to Ukraine and Moldova, although Georgia is by many measures essentially the most superior of the trio. The rejection is alleged to mirror Georgia’s institutional drift away from liberalism and towards a more in-depth geopolitical relationship with Russia. It additionally spells a tough yr forward for the South Caucasian republic because it grapples with the demand for fast reforms issued by the EU, which is prepared to present Tbilisi one other probability to carry its famously professional‑European however troubled nation into the Western fold.

Since attaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Georgia has been identified for its robust want to combine into European and transatlantic establishments to flee the confines of regional geopolitics which have condemned it to Russian domination for the previous 200 years. On this century, it has been essentially the most vocally pro-Western nation within the area, sending troops to serve alongside Individuals and Europeans on overseas missions, signing an affiliation settlement with the European Union in 2014, and attaining visa-free journey with Europe in 2017. In 2008, Georgia fought a bloody warfare in opposition to Russia, which was provoked by the nation’s transfer towards NATO. The Georgian inhabitants, constantly and by a big majority, helps becoming a member of the European Union and NATO as a elementary purpose and aspiration.

Just lately, nonetheless, Georgia’s prospects of becoming a member of the West are deteriorating as a consequence of a authorities whose strategic allegiance to the West has been put in query. The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) get together based by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire businessman who made his fortune in Russia, has come underneath criticism for consolidating its energy on the expense of the nation’s institutional progress. As some would retort, with or with out Ivanishvili, Georgian democracy has by no means been excellent. Mikheil Saakashvili, the larger-than-life former president and at present an imprisoned de facto chief of the most important opposition get together, who dominated the nation between the Rose Revolution in 2003 and his get together’s electoral defeat in 2012, was additionally criticized for quite a few abuses of energy. His United Nationwide Motion introduced the nation nearer to the West by means of radical reforms however ultimately alienated nearly all of Georgians with its authoritarian impulses. Nonetheless, GD’s decade-long reign provoked actual alarm bells within the West for what observers noticed as an influence seize at residence coupled with geopolitical overtures to Moscow and distancing from Washington and Brussels.

On the identical time, the ruling get together features in a political setting through which European integration stays the elemental aspiration of the inhabitants, and Russia is overwhelmingly feared. As Maka Botchorishvili, the GD-affiliated chair of the parliamentary European Integration Committee admitted to us, “the 2 most delicate points for the Georgian public are the European Union and Russia,” they usually drive political discourse within the nation. The GD authorities mirrored this sentiment by remaining staunchly dedicated to European integration in its rhetoric and promised to formally apply for EU candidacy in 2024 when presumably Georgia would have been capable of submit a convincing software. On the identical time, the opposition alleged that the federal government had no real intention of going out on a limb to attain membership and was as a substitute primarily involved with sustaining the looks of making an attempt.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine dramatically modified the sport for each the federal government and the opposition by creating irresistible momentum for rapid motion. Following the outbreak of warfare, Ukraine determined to lodge its personal EU candidacy software, hoping to journey the wave created by the sacrifice of its individuals for a European future, and Moldova adopted alongside. The Georgian authorities then felt compelled to keep away from being the odd one out of the “Related Trio” that, since final yr, united Tbilisi, Kyiv, and Chisinau of their battle for EU membership. Furthermore, from the primary day of the Russian invasion, tens of 1000’s confirmed their help for Ukraine in Tbilisi and different main cities and demanded decisive motion from the federal government. Salome Samadashvili, an impartial opposition MP, instructed us that the invasion compelled the GD authorities to cease procrastinating and confront its defective file in implementing EU requirements. For Botchorishvili and different GD officers, the warfare has solely hastened a candidacy bid that may have been submitted anyway It additionally put Georgia in an uncomfortable place of getting to run two years forward of its unique 2024 schedule and argue its case for candidacy in a state of affairs through which the highlight and sympathy would understandably be targeted on Ukraine.

The end result of Tbilisi’s bid despatched the staunchly pro-European however politically troubled nation into an existential disaster. On June 23, the European Council granted Ukraine and Moldova candidate standing however refused to do the identical for Georgia. As a substitute, the EU proclaimed Georgia’s “European perspective” which vaguely predicts an eventual candidacy. This de facto rejection was taken very painfully in Tbilisi, as politicians from the federal government and opposition alike universally admitted to us, leaving the sphere open to hypothesis about its causes. For presidency officers, this disappointment comes all the way down to dangerous timing, a misunderstanding of Georgia’s progress and place, in addition to a historic injustice.

Within the prelude to the EC’s unfavorable resolution, French president Emmanuel Macron put Georgia in a single basket with Armenia and Azerbaijan, saying that “geopolitically and geographically they don’t seem to be positioned right now in the identical state of affairs” as Ukraine and Moldova. His assertion was taken as an indication of a presumably harmful regression within the perceptions of Tbilisi held within the European capitals. As Botchorishvili identified, the EU had already formally acknowledged Georgia as a part of geographic and geopolitical Europe within the 2014 affiliation settlement.

One other doable supply of the June disappointment lies within the high quality of Georgia’s democracy and institutional order, which has been loudly questioned within the worldwide area in recent times. Nonetheless, Giorgi Khelashvili, the GD-affiliated member of parliament and deputy chair of the International Relations Committee, argued that by all EU requirements, Georgia is extra superior than both Ukraine or Moldova. For instance, he says, “Ukraine is without doubt one of the most corrupt nations on this planet, whereas Georgia is within the high 50 least corrupt.” As Khelashvili factors out, even officers within the European Fee privately admit that Georgia’s software questionnaire “was by far one of the best of the three.”

Lastly, there may be the problem of an ethical proper to knock on Europe’s doorways, which Ukraine understandably claims within the current second on the grounds of its immense, ongoing sacrifice and which trickles all the way down to Moldova, which has been actively accepting Ukrainian refugees. Right here maybe, Georgians have felt the European Council resolution most painfully on condition that, by all measures, within the latest previous they’ve additionally sacrificed for a European future. In 2008, Georgia fought a lonely warfare in opposition to Russian aggression prompted by the prospect of becoming a member of NATO and has since endured years of Russian financial sanctions and ongoing occupation of 20 % of its territory. “To us, it looks as if blood and sacrifice have an expiration date,” Khelashvili sadly mirrored.

Whereas not unfounded, this rhetoric offered by authorities officers and politicians conveniently leaves out a extra difficult actuality. Regardless of apparent arguments in favor of Georgia’s membership, underneath the GD authorities, Tbilisi has shifted in direction of an ambivalent place between Moscow and the West. Analysts have described this coverage as a “double recreation” between pushing for European integration on the one hand and a benevolent relationship with Russia on the opposite. The federal government needs to profit from European and American support and adjust to its inhabitants’s want for integration into Western establishments, however on the identical time, it has elevated its financial reliance on its northern neighbor. In latest months, Tbilisi has additionally hesitated to wreck its relations with Moscow by totally condemning and sanctioning Russia for the invasion of Ukraine.

On high of home rhetoric that caters to socially reactionary forces that current Westernization as a risk to conventional values, all of this should increase issues in European capitals. Whereas analysts agree that this notion displays “not a deliberate technique to alter alliances…however reasonably a sum of tactical selections dictated by cynical pragmatism” of the present authorities, it however hurts Georgia’s prospects of attaining its millennial ambitions. Whether or not it’s extra superior than Ukraine and Moldova or not, Tbilisi can hardly count on Brussels to be snug with rewarding Georgia with a candidacy standing given this latest file.

The approaching yr can be marked by uncertainty for Georgia, the place a majority calls for European integration from a authorities that struggles to ship whereas the opposition appears unable to beat its divisions and Saakashvili’s controversial legacy. After the EU’s unfavorable resolution in June, pro-European teams gathered tens of 1000’s of individuals within the streets to demand the federal government’s resignation. Though the protests fizzled out after just a few weeks, a closing showdown remains to be forward. Alongside its momentary rejection, the European Council offered Georgia with a listing of twelve suggestions regarding reforms that the nation should undertake earlier than a deadline, initially set for six months, to attain candidate standing. Now prolonged till the autumn of 2023, the EU deadline represents a watershed second for Georgia.