Georgia and the EU: Can Europe’s neighbourhood policy deliver? By Mark Leonard and Charles Grant ★ Georgia is an important test for Euro p e ’s neighbourhood policy. It is a country whose geography, history and culture are in many respects European. Its role as an energy transit route, its location close to Russia, and its ‘frozen’ conflicts give it strategic importance. ★ Georgia’s current government is committed to re f o rm and democracy, and has shown a stro n g desire to be part of the European club. But so far the EU’s reluctance to offer the prospect of membership and its fear of upsetting Russia have prevented it from thinking strategically about Georgia. Nor has the EU used its transformative power to underpin re f o rm in Georg i a . ★ The EU could have a major impact on Georgia if it linked incentives to the re f o rm process there . It needs to acknowledge Georg i a ’s European identity, and keep open the prospect of eventual membership; play a meaningful role in resolving the frozen conflicts; use the ‘Euro p e a n n e i g h b o u rhood policy’ to ensure that Georgia stays on a democratic track; and support Georgia’s application to join NATO by encouraging the government to stick to peaceful ways of resolving the frozen conflicts.
All public buildings in downtown Tbilisi fly EU flags next to Georgian ones. The flags are a symbol of Georgia’s determination to integrate itself into the West after the ‘rose revolution’, and a reminder of the potency of the European dream outside the European Union’s borders. Georgia’s bloodless coup of December 2003, which had started as a protest against the results of a rigged parliamentary election, brought to power a reform-minded government lead by the 37-year old Mikheil Saakashvili. It also helped to inspire mobilisations of ‘people power’ in Ukraine, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan. The demonstrators who overt h rew Eduard Shevardnadze’s corrupt and discredited regime wanted the West to help them free their country from Russia’s shadow. They also wished to embark on a transformation similar to the one pursued by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. But Georgia’s enthusiasm for Europe has not yet been reciprocated. The EU funds a number of useful projects in Georgia, but it has neither given the country much political support nor thought
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strategically about its importance to the EU. While George Bush travelled across the Atlantic to bless the Georgian revolution at a rally in Tbilisi’s Freedom Square, no European head of government has been to Georgia since the revolution. And Georgia’s foreign minister complains that she has had trouble getting appointments with the British, French and German foreign ministers. Part of the problem is that the EU is afraid of raising expectations of membership – particularly after the re f e rendums in France and the Netherlands, where the votes against the constitutional treaty appear to have been in part motivated by opposition to enlarg e m e n t . But in the absence of a policy of integration, Euro p e a n diplomacy towards neighbouring countries such as G e o rgia has been underwhelming. The EU has made these countries feel like poor and unwelcome relatives. It has thus extracted much less leverage from its aid to the region than it could have. The EU should now get serious about Georgia, a country of strategic importance. The security
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