A proposed conditional offer to Georgia of EU candidate-member status from the European Commission yesterday is a welcome, long overdue upgrade of the process of accession which goes back to 2006 and a five-year “Action Plan” of rapprochement. The Commission report, which recommended opening of formal negotiations on membership for Ukraine and Moldova, marks an important landmark for Georgia, but the extended process means it will still be many years before it joins.
The ball is now back in Tbilisi’s court. The decision will require Georgia to implement a package of 12 substantial reforms prescribed by Brussels in June last year to strengthen its democracy and the independence of its courts, media and other areas of public life. These include Georgia aligning itself with the EU’s foreign policy sanctions, notably against Russia, pushing back against disinformation and political polarisation, as well as ensuring a free and fair election next year.
Yet while a poll in April found that 89 per cent of Georgians support joining the EU, the highest number for years, the ambivalent attitude of the country’s Georgian Dream government towards Russia has raised suspicions that its aspiration to membership is halfhearted. Critics point to its refusal to implement sanctions over Ukraine or to provide it with arms. The party is said to be in thrall to its billionaire founder, former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, who has substantial business links to Russia.
The ambivalence is surprising and out of kilter with the popular mood. Russia, which attacked Georgia in 2008, occupies the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Polls show that nine in 10 Georgians back Ukraine and view Russia as a major threat. Moldova, on the other hand, part of which Russia also occupies and subverts, stood up for Ukraine and has been rewarded with EU accession negotiations.
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Accession remains a merit-based process, the Commission insists, fully dependent on the objective progress achieved by each country. Georgia’s report says “could do better”.