President: European aid could stand improvement
By Mary Makharashvili
The Messenger, Georgia
Feb 7 2005
Thank you for your assistance, but its current form is ineffective, was
President Mikheil Saakashvili’s challenge to Europe while delivering
the keynote address at the two-day conference on ‘South Caucasus in
the 21st century: Challenges and Opportunities,’ held on February
4-5 at the Marriott Courtyard.
Although the president’s speech on Friday was closed to reporters,
conference attendees confirmed the president’s sentiment, some
agreeing, others questioning and some clarifying his request for
Europe to be a more active partner for Georgia.
Commenting on the president’s words, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Salome Zurabishvili said that the president was neither expressing
anger nor complaining in his speech. She said that the president
“simply pointed out some facts” and that it is “necessary that Europe
transform its projects into more concrete assistance.”
“Yes, earlier there was always readiness and assistance from Europe
to assist, but they did not target concrete problems,” Zurabishvili
told The Messenger.
She added that Saakashvili highlighted the example of penal reform.
Instead of sending numerous experts to analyze the situation, he
implied Europe would be better off to build prisons.
The president’s words resonated with many attendees. Director of
the Danish Institute for International Studies Per Carlsen told The
Messenger, “the president was totally right.”
“The European Union has been very, very slow in recognizing the
neighborhood of the Caucasus and that it is a part of Europe. It
has to do much more to play a positive role in the reform process in
Georgia and, of course, hopefully in Armenia and Azerbaijan as well,”
Carlsen added.
President of Project on Transitional Democracies Bruce Jackson,
however, saw the president’s speech as part of his general, vocal
appeal to the international community for support. In his speech,
Jackson said, President Saakashvili was challenging Europe to move as
quickly as the United States has done on things like the Millennium
Challenge Account.
“The president admires what the EU has done on the neighborhood
policy because oftentimes decision making in Brussels is very slow,”
Jackson said.
When Saakashvili visits the United States, Jackson said, “he is always
challenging my government to do more and I think today he was also
challenging our European allies to do better.”
“One thing about Mikheil Saakashvili is that he is a man in a hurry,”
Jackson said.
In an interview with The Messenger, President of the POLICY Foundation
(Russia) Vyacheslav Nikonov described the European Union as “a very
bureaucratic institution.” He said, “all the assistance programs are
to spend money inside Europe on feasibility studies, conferences,
but not on real assistance.”
“That is quite understandable as we in Russia deal with the same kind
of situation. That is just Europe,” he said. “They do not spend much
money on outside purposes. They like to spend money on themselves.”
Secretary of the Georgian National Security Council Gela Bezhuashvili
backed up the president’s statement, saying Europe lags behind the
United States in terms of aid to Georgia. “Of course U.S. assistance
to Georgia is greater than Europe’s and it is more oriented to concrete
results,” Bezhuashvili told The Messenger.
Security in the Caucasus
More than 140 policymakers, political scientists, researchers and
high level government officials from 31 countries as well as the
representatives of different international organizations including
the EU, NATO and OSCE participated in the conference. The Georgian
Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS) organized
the event under the support of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF,
Japan).
“We are trying to find out which direction the South Caucasus is
heading in and what concrete steps need to be taken,” Vice-President
of GFSIS Temur Yakobashvili told The Messenger on Thursday.
President of GFSIS Alexander Rondeli noted the conference “is of great
important” because it includes not only Georgia, but the entire South
Caucasus region.
“When issues are discussed in the context of the South Caucasus
and when at the same time representatives of United States, our
neighboring countries and leading countries of Asia attend it, this
means that the region is the focus of the interest,” Rondeli said in
an interview with The Messenger.
One of the main topics of the conference was security in the South
Caucasus region.
Asked how secure the Caucasus region is, National Security Council
Secretary Bezhuashvili said that Georgia is currently analyzing
security in the Caucasus region.
“There are quite a lot of dangers in this region but the majority
of them are in the economic sphere and not in the military one,”
Bezhuashvili said.
“There are the issues of human trafficking, drug smuggling, and
criminal issues. But what is more important is that during this year
Georgia take steps that set an example for others on how difficult
situations can be dealt with in a short period of time,” he said.
The absence of the late Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, who was scheduled
to speak on Friday, gave attendees even more to worry about. Vice
President of GFSIS Yakobashvili said the tragic fact “clearly shows
that our state is quite weak with regard to institution building.”
“The death of such an important figure as Mr. Zurab Zhvania may have
quite a serious impact not only in Georgia, but also in the region as
well. I mean that he was a person that was respected not only within
the country but also by the leaders of many countries and was playing a
solid and positive role in international relations,” Yakobashvili said.
“The security of state official is always directly connected with
a country’s political security. The main thing is that the change
of authority does not bring radical changes to the country. For
this to happen, institutional building of the country is needed,”
Yakobashvili concluded.