Georgia’s EU bid raises existential question: Where does Europe end?

Europe is in the present day going through its most feared nightmare: warfare.

An armed, bloody battle has as soon as once more damaged out in the midst of the continent: Ukrainians battle on the streets to expel the invading Russian forces, who threaten to take over their neighbour and subjugate their cherished independence.

Within the span of only a few days, the continent’s conscience has been shaken to the core, resulting in a strong outpour of solidarity for Ukraine and a sudden re-examination of our frequent id as Europeans.

Moved by each hope and hopelessness, the Kyiv authorities has launched a long-shot bid to hitch the European Union, an arduous, intricate and fragile course of that rests on the political will of the 27 member states. Shortly after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the official utility, two different nations adopted go well with: Moldova and Georgia.

None of those three states had beforehand been thought-about a critical candidate to turn into a part of the bloc, however the horror and shock inflicted by the warfare have all of the sudden shifted the narrative of their favour. The largely stalled accession course of has now been reawakened and infused with a brand new which means, even when the possibilities for a profitable decision are nonetheless low and replete with obstacles.

However for Georgia, one other hurdle emerges: Is it actually a part of Europe?

Article 49 of the EU treaties says that “any European State” that respects the bloc’s core values can apply for membership. At first sight, the supply has a twin dimension: geographical – being someplace contained in the European continent – and political – complying with the basic tenets of the European challenge, that’s, being an open democracy primarily based on the rule of legislation and human rights.

On democracy, Georgia has a blended report. As a parliamentary republic, the nation has made nice strides to beat its Soviet legacy and holds common elections to decide on its public representatives. However the system is shaky, with frequent accusations of fraud and undue boundaries for opposition events.

“Oligarchic affect impacts the nation’s political affairs, coverage choices, and media atmosphere, and the rule of legislation is undermined by politicisation. Civil liberties are inconsistently protected,” says Freedom Home, a non-profit centre that conducts analysis on democracy and human rights.

Freedom Home calls Georgia “partly free,” whereas The Economist’s Democracy Index describes it as a “hybrid regime.” Reporters With out Borders says the nation’s media is “pluralist however not but unbiased.”

Whereas political shortcomings are a significant impediment on the street to EU membership, they aren’t set in stone.

In actual fact, the accession course of is designed to progressively enhance a candidate’s political requirements in order that by the point it lastly joins the bloc, the newcomer is completely aligned with the opposite member states.

In contrast, geography is about in stone – in probably the most literal sense of the expression. And in Georgia’s case, the stone below its toes would possibly elevate some uncomfortable questions.

Between two continents

Georgia is a small nation of virtually 4 million residents positioned within the Transcaucasia area, south of the Caucasus Mountains. It’s bounded on the north by Russia, on the east by Azerbaijan, and on the south by Armenia and Turkey. The nation’s western half borders the Black Sea, opening up an easy maritime route in direction of two EU nations, Romania and Bulgaria.

This specific place places Georgia at odds with the historically outlined borders of Europe, which lengthen all the way in which to the Ural Mountains in Russia, comply with the Ural River all the way down to the Caspian Sea, after which move by the very crest of the Caucasus till they attain the Black Sea.

This traditional interpretation is adopted by, amongst others, the Nationwide Geographic Society – whose map of Europe tip-toes previous Georgia – the Encyclopædia Britannica and the CIA’s World Factbook.

For the reason that Caucasus act as Georgia’s pure northern border, probably the most standard understanding of Europe bypasses the nation altogether, leaving the area as a kind of transcontinental bridge “on the intersection of Japanese Europe and Western Asia,” as Wikipedia places it.

“I name the Caucasus ‘the lands in between.’ Geographically, the nations lie between Europe, Asia, Russia, and the Center East. Culturally, they’re on the border the place Islam meets Christianity, and the place democracy meets authoritarianism,” stated Thomas de Waal, creator of the ebook The Caucasus: An Introduction, throughout a 2019 Q&A session.

“It’s a complicated, attention-grabbing area, which is a borderland in additional methods than simply geography.”

Georgia’s nature as a transit zone appears to confound worldwide organisations.

The Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) excludes Georgia in its periodic financial outlook for Europe. Eurostat, the European Fee’s statistical workplace, additionally ignores the nation in its examine of areas and cities, which options your entire Turkish territory.

The Council of Europe, nevertheless, did see Georgia as a part of the European household of countries when it granted the nation’s membership in 1999. (The Council of Europe is a human rights organisation with restricted energy and utterly unrelated to the EU establishments.)

“I’m Georgian and due to this fact I’m European,” stated Zurab Zhvania, Georgia’s prime minister, when his nation joined the organisation, lower than a decade after the collapse of the USSR.

Zhvania’s triumphant phrases evoked a way of belonging that defied geographical boundaries and as an alternative embraced frequent ties cast on tradition, creed and historical past. At its best extent, the Roman Empire reached all the way in which to the Caucasus. The world in the present day often known as Georgia was then referred to as Colchis and Iberia.

“The attention-grabbing and tough factor in regards to the idea of Europe is that individuals have been actually arguing about it for no less than 2,500 years,” says Giancarlo Casale, a professor on the European College Institute (EUI) with a concentrate on the Ottoman empire and its connections with the trendy world.

“Behind these arguments is a predisposition to outline Europe in a selected means. One technique to outline it’s as Christian. So if you wish to see Europe as Christian, then it inevitably is smart that Georgia needs to be in, as a result of despite the fact that it is on the market within the Central Caucasus, it is likely one of the oldest Christian civilisations of the world.”

‘No unequivocal settlement’

At this time, because the European continent turns into more and more interconnected, borderless and digital, its true character, and due to this fact its confines, exceed the bodily realm that characterised the previous empires, a pattern that President Vladimir Putin seems desperate to reverse.

Conceptual elements, reminiscent of political affinity and social constructions, have now better affect in shaping a collective sense of Europeanness. This summary dimension has come to the fore throughout Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an act of warfare that has turned Kyiv right into a kind of frontline protector of the Western mannequin of democracy.

“Two months in the past, I did not hear anyone saying that Ukraine was a European nation, as a result of no matter whether or not it was a democracy or not, there wasn’t any query it might be a part of the European Union,” Casale informed Euronews in a video interview.

“You may see how shortly these sorts of discourses can change the politics of the second and the way individuals are fascinated by what they wish to be as Europeans and the way different nations slot in with that mannequin.”

This versatile interpretation of what’s Europe would possibly smoothen the trail for Georgia’s EU ambitions or, no less than, for being granted candidate standing. The formal change would open the door to the bloc’s Instrument for Pre-Accession Help (IPA), a multi-billion monetary programme that helps nations perform the required reforms to return nearer to the EU’s authorized order.

Cyprus, a rustic that geographically belongs to Asia Minor however is majority Christian and Greek-speaking, benefitted from this elastic understanding when it joined the bloc as a part of the 2004 wave of enlargement, a time when the political will to increase the EU was decisively stronger than it’s in the present day.

Balkan nations with giant Muslim populations, reminiscent of Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, have equally been accepted as aspiring members, though their future stays, at finest, unsure.

“There isn’t any unequivocal settlement on what a ‘European state’ means. This requirement may be learn from completely different views, together with geographical, cultural, political, strategic phrases,” Corina Stratulat, a senior analyst on the European Coverage Centre (EPC) who research EU enlargement, tells Euronews.

Brussels’ willingness to show Europe’s map the wrong way up is, nevertheless, not infinite.

In 1987, Morocco’s bid to hitch the European Communities, the EU’s predecessor, was rejected on the grounds it was not a European nation. But, as Stratulat notes, Turkey’s utility, despatched that very same 12 months, was “accepted regardless of its geographic place in Asia.”

The political sensitivities involving the EU’s accession course of, the place the capitals must inexperienced gentle each procedural step by unanimity, counsel the continent’s closing map can be drawn first by prime ministers and later polished by cartographers.

“Is the European challenge primarily motivated by geography or by different financial and strategic/safety concerns? Can geography be a key consideration in an age outlined by the web and globalisation, the place distances and borders imply nothing? Is growth very important or non-compulsory for the EU?” Stratulat wonders.

“Relying on how member states reply to those questions, it can decide how far the Union can stretch.”