Strasbourg, 14/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - Are Georgians European or not ? On 14 November the Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili told MEPs, “We are a very ancient European nation and enthusiastic Europeans…we want to be like you”. He posed the following question, “Can you imagine for a single instant, the world after the fall of the Soviet Union, if there had not been a European Union? I wonder what Robert Schuman would say looking at a map of Europe today”. He was keen to point out that, “I am not actually asking the EU to welcome Georgia on board as a member. EU accession is a distant objective and not on the current agenda”. He did say, however, that Georgia wanted to strengthen its partnership with the EU and prove that they could be “exemplary European neighbours and reliable partner”. The Georgian president averred that by deepening their neighbourhood partnership they could “avoid having to ask you for aid” and that by helping them develop trade they could overcome the consequences of the Russian “blockade”.
Saakashvili illustrated some of the progress made by his country in the fight against corruption, economic reforms, police and legal reforms but recognised that, “We still don't have sufficiently strong opposition parties…but we will have an opposition because nothing is worse for a government than not having an opposition worthy of this name to confront”. He explained that last year 100,000 Georgians returned home and that a star of the Bolshoi had created a dance troop. He said that they had natural beauty in the country that ought attract tourism and “we are cheaper than Scotland” and the Polish army drank Georgian wine. On several occasions he mentioned his commitment to human and minority rights (he studied in Strasbourg).
The Georgian president declared that they were aware that there were problems pertaining to minorities in Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia and that they had proposed discussing the matter with Moscow and the “separatists”. He also hammered home the fact that they had asked “European capitals” to help find a “European solution to the 21st century” and insisted that Georgia was “multi-ethnic”, a force and that Georgians were not “anti-Russian”. He said that they had to stay calm, which is effectively what they would manage to do and that “spheres of influence belong to the past”. The president was keen to point to variety of cases of solidarity by Georgians in the current crisis with Russia and especially by Russians themselves: the theatre actor who asked for Georgian nationality, St Petersburg drivers who are not complying with the injunction to not take passengers that “look Georgian”. Individual acts of this kind can help make the difference, he said, again insisting on the notion of solidarity and concluding his speech quoting Schuman and Adenauer.
President Borrell told the president of Georgia (who listened to him without an interpreter and who began his speech with a few sentences in Spanish, before continuing in Georgian, English and French) that “in history, your name will remain linked to the revolution of roses”. Borrell said, however, that “your way forward will certainly not be a bed of roses” and recognised the current difficulties such as the conflicts in Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia. Mr Borrell said that Russia was currently exerting strong pressures on Georgia and during his dinner with president Putin (20 October at the Lahti summit: EUROPE 9291), “we talked a lot about your country”.
Georgia will not agree to the doubling of Russian gas prices, affirms Saakashvili
During a joint press conference with Mr Borrell, the Georgian president affirmed that he did not intend accepting the doubling of Russian gas prices imposed by Moscow. At the beginning of November in the middle of the crisis caused by the arrest of four Russian officers accused of spying by Georgia, the giant Russian Gazprom company announced a price hike of $230 per 1000 cubic meters, as opposed to the current $110. The Georgian premier emphasised that “we will not pay this price. $230 is not a commercial price”, adding that Georgia was prepared to cooperate with Russia “but not by giving in to political pressure” and even less so to blackmail. The Georgian president said that the country would examine all options to Russian gas, including supplies from “other neighbouring countries” and the increased use of electricity produced in Georgia (“this year, for the first time, we are exporting electricity”), said the president. (mg/hb)