GEORGIA MOVES CLOSER TO THE EU BY ALIGNING WITH IT ON INTERNATIONAL ARENA
Nodar Tangiashvili

Daily Georgian Times, Georgia
June 11 2007

A final agreement has been reached with the EU on allowing Georgia to
concur with its position on the foreign policy issues that the EU will
touch upon in its statements. On 1 June, 2007 Georgia gained the right
to align itself with the political statements and declarations that are
adopted by the EU under its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

This opportunity for Georgia has been present in the European
Neighborhood Policy Action Plan, a document of EU-Georgia priorities
and actions that was jointly agreed last November. However, it was only
in 14-16 May, 2007 that the two sides arrived at the final agreement
during the talks that Georgia’s Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili
held in Brussels.

Thanks to this provision of the ENP Action Plan that is now in force,
Georgia will be invited to join the statements of the EU on foreign
and security policy matters. At the end of each statement of the
continent’s most influential union now we will see "Georgia" among
other signing European countries, mainly the EU member states. This is
an important dividend for the country whose pro-Western leadership has
claimed to pursue the same goals in foreign policy and prescribe to the
same values that the European Union shares. Before this provision came
into force, Georgia usually supported the EU’s political statements
anyways. But now all interested EU citizens will know that Georgia is
among those European countries who are concerned with the same issue
as they are and support EU policies for achieving pan-European goals.

It is also a manifestation that the EU acknowledges Georgia’s
"Europeanness" and yet another symbol of recognizing Georgia’s
pro-EU aspirations. The first encouraging signal was the fact that
the Action Plan mentions, "the European Union takes note of the
European aspirations Georgia has expressed". Now, another symbolic
stem has been taken in reality. Georgia and the EU moved to a closer
partnership in the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia stated on 4 June,
2007, the agreement on Georgia’s adherence to EU political statements
"brings Georgia even closer to Europe and is of particular importance
in terms of the further development of Georgia’s political cooperation
with the European Union. Georgia is now involved in carrying out the
European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, and afforded the
opportunity to voice its position alongside the European Union’s 27
member states on the ongoing political developments in the world".

GT interviewed a Georgian expert, Mr. Kakha Gogolashvili, who is the
director of the Georgian European Policy and Legal Advice Center
(GEPLAC), to find out if this optimistic tone of the statement is
indeed sustainable. It turns out that not only Georgia, who from the
very beginning of EU-Georgia negotiations was more ambitious than
Armenia and Azerbaijan and insisted on its Black Sea dimension, but
also its two South Caucasian neighbors will benefit from the Georgian
diplomats’ achievement.

Q: On June 1 Georgia and the EU arrived at an agreement on inviting
Georgia to join the political statements of the EU….

Kakha Gogolashvili:

It can be said that the agreement has long been reached. Namely, it
was reached when the European Commission agreed to include, probably on
the basis of the member states’ consent, into the EU-Georgia European
Neighborhood Policy Action Plan this issue of allowing Georgia to join,
on a case-by-case basis, the political statements expressing the EU’s
position. Since this provision was put into the Action Plan, which was
finally adopted last November, it was clear for us that an official
confirmation would follow. The Action Plan is not an international
treaty with a binding force, obligatory to fulfill and therefore, it
was possible that after some time they (the EU) would not tell us to
join, but now the information came from the EU that Georgia, Armenia
and Azerbaijan have been granted the right to join the statements
adopted by the EU in the framework of the Common Foreign and Security
Policy (CFSP). Though, to me the question of Azerbaijan is peculiar,
because Azerbaijan did not have this provision in its Action Plan and
nor did it demand it specifically, while Armenia demanded it after
Georgia raised its claim on that issue.

Q: Which other countries enjoy the same right?

Moldova and Ukraine also have been joining for a long time. Making CFSP
statements, i.e. joint statements of the EU is due to the instrument
that was introduced by the Treaty of Maastricht (entered into force
in 1992, GT). Besides the member states of the EU, such statements
are usually joined by EFTA (European Free Trade Association, GT)
countries, i.e. the ones that have signed with the EU Agreement on
a European Economic Area, namely, Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland,
and of course the candidate countries – Turkey, Croatia, Macedonia,
as well as the countries involved in the so-called Association and
Stabilization process in the West Balkans such as Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Serbia, now Montenegro as an independent state and Albania; plus
Ukraine and Moldova.

Q. How important was that agreement on allowing Georgia to align
itself with EU political statements?

Seventeen countries participate in the European Neighborhood process
and only two of them have the right to join the joint or common
political statements of the EU. Now three more states of Georgia,
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been entitled to do so. This means
recognition that the EU when it makes certain statements on some
international issues, certainly looks for allies in this process, much
like any country seeking to express certain position on international
arena that always looks for allies because its positions become more
solid and stronger by doing so. But it matters which countries you
permit to also make a statement together with you. When one country
asks another country to join its statements, it means that it regards
the other country as having the same ideology, political thinking,
so to say. At least, it considers it as a political ally to a certain
extent, as an ideological partner. It is important that by the EU
consenting to Georgia’s joining its political statements, it recognizes
that human rights and rule of law in Georgia are protected on certain
satisfactory level, that Georgia is more or less a democracy and a
state with the right foreign policy orientation – an ally of the EU
on international issues. Accordingly, when the EU makes an offer to
a country to join the statements it makes, it thereby sends a signal
or indicates to it that the EU is ready to act on the international
scene together with this country, in concurrence with it.

It is true that the text of such statements are agreed and elaborated
through negotiations only among the member states, but it is obvious
that when the member states know that they will be joined by other
states, specifically the abovementioned countries, they will surely
take into consideration what those countries think in relation to
these issues. This will mean that Georgia, a small country, will have
certain influence on the policies of the EU.

Q. In what cases will Georgia be able to align?

If an issue in no way relates to Georgia’s interest or does not fully
foresee its interest, then the EU can make its statement separately
without having Georgia joined. In principle, this implies that the
statements that the EU adopts on an issue which virtually do not
touch upon other countries. Such an example would be a statement
dealing with the EU’s programs in Iraq and the issues of their
implementation. This question is still of international importance,
but it is more specifically about how the EU carries out its missions
in Iraq. If the statement is on any other issue that Georgia is not
concerned with, the EU will not invite it. Though in most cases we
should expect that the name of Georgia will be present on the list
of singing countries, because we can see that in the cases when the
issue does not deal with the region, but say, with Sierra Leone, East
Timor, etc. Ukraine and Moldova are named too, as they were offered
to join these statements. The more countries join its statements,
the stronger the voice of the EU will be, though it is already quite
strong. I would like to underline that if the EU had agreed with
a country whose international prestige is not on a proper degree,
or whose policy the EU or international community does not welcome,
this would backfire for the prestige of the EU, downgrading the force
and prestige, so to say, of these statements. It is important that the
EU does not fear that being associated with Georgia will be harmful.

Q. If we look at this issue from the perspective of Georgia’s long-term
EU membership, would you say there has been a progress in that regard?

I would definitely say "yes", because most of the countries that join
the statements, including Moldova, if you wish, have a great chance
for membership. Ukraine also has one, but the internal situation in
the country hinders even a possibility of speculations on that issue.

It depends on what political forces will win there. As for the rest,
whether Western Balkan countries, or certainly the candidate countries
and the EFTA states would have long become EU members had they stated
their desire. Thus, this really moves Georgia’s prospect closer to EU
membership. You can see that in the cases of Morocco, Israel or other
similar countries the Action Plans contain no such a possibility of
alignment. So, it seems the EU takes this clause seriously. Political
approximation with the EU is much more important than economic
ties. The latest EU enlargement, or any previous enlargement took
political criteria as the first testing stone, that is to say, how
politically mature and ideologically close to the EU a country is
and joining CFSP means that the EU recognizes our closeness with it.

Q: In the past Georgia still supported EU statements. How did that
happen? What did Georgia do to express its backing of the EU’s
positions?

In most cases, in the past this was done unilaterally through the
statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or less frequently the
President of Georgia. I think it was after Moldova and Ukraine were
given the right to join the statements that Georgia too started to
make its statements unilaterally. We also know that long before that
Georgia always adhered to the EU’s positions within international
organizations.