On 14 December 2023, the European Council decided to grant Georgia the status of European Union accession candidate country (see EUROPE 13314/1). This news was eclipsed by the decision to open accession negotiations with Ukraine (which, as readers will recall, was a highly contentious matter) and its neighbour, Moldova.
Georgia is far less well-known than either of those and probably the Balkan states as well. It gets very little mention in the media. One could safely say that current European citizens know almost nothing about Georgia. For people in Western Europe at least, it is not a terribly popular holiday destination.
From October 2023, an opportunity to get to know the country was made available to all those living in or travelling through the capital of Europe (or elsewhere in Belgium) by the association Europalia, which hosts events on a theme or country every two years. The programme was decided upon in conjunction with the Georgian Ministry of Culture, Sport and Youth, before the country’s European perspective was settled. From the opening exhibition on the Avant-Garde in Georgia (1900-1936) to the one in the Musée d’art et d’histoire (at the Cinquantenaire Park site), bringing together an impressive display of treasures (and open to the public until 18 February), via polyphonic concerts, theatre shows, films, dance performances and literary readings, the activities on offer were rich and compelling. It will be interesting to see the final visitor numbers for Europalia-Georgia. Incidentally, it is the other 26 members that could do with an awareness campaign, not just about the country itself, but also about its relations with its neighbours just as much as with our Union.
A small country of just 3.7 million inhabitants, with Black Sea access and more than 85% of its surface area given over to forest, Georgia shares borders with Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia. Human habitation of the country dates back to ancient times with notable evidence of early stone and fire work and the production of wine and, later, remarkable jewellery. The area has seen numerous invasions and wars, divisions and unifications of its land. The instability of the political powers-that-be have not prevented the emergence of a brilliant civilisation. With the exception of the Greek and Roman phases, the country has always had to deal with belligerent forces coming from the East. But from the 18th century onwards, it was annexed, first partially and then fully, by the Russian Empire, leading to a degree of mixing between the respective elites.
In the wake of the October Revolution, Georgia’s independence was proclaimed in May 1918. However, the young republic was invaded by Soviet troops in February 1921. The following year, Joseph Stalin, a Georgian citizen, became the leader of the USSR, oppressing the anti-Communist opposition but making his country of birth into a holiday resort for the nomenklatura. In 1953, he was succeeded by a Ukrainian, Nikita Khruschev, who did not liberalise the regime but put down Georgian riots opposing it.
Following the dissolution of the USSR, Georgia again proclaimed its independence in April 1991, but the separatists of South Ossetia went on to proclaim their own in the following November. Abkhazia then broke away too, following a civil war. In both cases, these movements were supported by Russia. All of this also underlined the internal political consensus. President Shevardnadze, former head of the national Communist Party, was deposed in 2003 (“Revolution of Roses”). His successor, Mikheil Saakashvili, made overtures to the West and the Arab countries. Georgia applied to join NATO. The aforementioned secessionist tensions grew, Moscow took steps to russify South Ossetia and intervened militarily in August 2008. France, then President of the Council of the EU, played the role of mediator and managed to forge an agreement between Russia and Georgia on a peace plan, which Putin flouted to the extent that diplomatic relations were broken off between Tbilisi and Moscow. Later in 2008, at the NATO summit in Bucharest, it was declared that the country would become a member of the Atlantic Alliance. The independence of the two break-away regions is not internationally recognised at the moment, but they are effectively controlled by Russia, not Georgia.
The European Union turned its attentions to Georgia after its return to independence. A bilateral partnership and cooperation agreement was signed in 1999. Ten years later, Georgia began to participate in the Eastern Partnership of the EU. An agreement on the common security and defence policy took effect in 2014; it saw Georgian soldiers land in Mali and the Central African Republic. An association agreement (also signed with Ukraine and Moldova) entered into force in June 2016. Since that time, public opinion in Georgia has been strongly in favour of joining the European Union and NATO, initiatives that are moreover set out in the national constitution. This consensus has been insufficient to avoid political instability, fed by serious tension between the majority and the opposition.
In 2022, the Russian aggression against Ukraine tipped the balance. Four days later, on 2 March, Georgia applied for EU accession. On 23 June, the European Council cautiously acknowledged the state’s “European perspective”. Twelve priorities were set out as preconditions to granting the country accession candidate status. To date, three of them have been completely fulfilled. Contact as intensified between the Commission and the Georgian authorities. In April 2023, an action plan was approved by the government. On 8 November, the Commission adopted an important report, 120 pages long, on progress made and everything still to do, i.e. a lot: tackling political polarisation, misinformation, corruption, institutional, electoral and judicial reform, protection of the freedom of the media and of civil society engagement, breaking down the oligarchies, strategy human rights and, last but not least, full alignment on the common foreign and security policy of the EU; Georgia took part in the international condemnation of Russian and Belarus, but not in the sanctions against them. Despite these shortcomings, the Commission had a basis to propose candidate status, subject to the appropriate measures being taken (see EUROPE 13288/1).
Candidate status does not necessarily end in accession, as Turkey is only too well aware. Geographers locate Georgia in Asia, like the island of Cyprus. Both countries have a divided territory. This did not prevent Cyprus from joining the EU, but the case of Georgia is considerably more complex. Joining the EU and, a fortiori, NATO would not play well with the Russian authorities, however much its stance may have softened; it would exacerbate the well-known feeling of being surrounded. Were it to venture into the Caucasus, a region that is not at peace, the European Union would, in the event of Georgia’s accession, have new external borders to manage, a mutual defence clause (article 42 TEU) of far broader application and possibly other accession approaches from Asian countries to process. And how would Turkey react?
It is, clearly, important to help Georgia to work towards meeting the criteria to join the EU, but it would seem at least equally important to carry out a robust “cost-benefit” analysis taking account of the long-term geopolitical interests of the Union itself.
Renaud Denuit