/ world today news/ The summit of the European Union (EU) has started in Brussels, where, among other urgent issues, the decision to grant Georgia the status of a candidate country for joining the EU will be considered.
For Tbilisi, this is the second attempt to secure such a status, it applied back in March 2022 together with Ukraine and Moldova. But in June 2023, Ukraine and Moldova received EU candidate status. The reasons for this turn of events were outlined by Brussels.
Official: Georgia has not implemented many of the proposed EU standards. Unofficial: Georgia refused to impose sanctions on Russia after it launched a special military operation in Ukraine, and later rejected calls by Kiev and Brussels to open a “second front in the Caucasus” to divert some of Russia’s armed forces, and resumed direct flights to Russia.
The government of Irakli Garibashvili preferred national interests to the geopolitical games of its European partners, and therefore, despite the fact that Georgia surpassed Ukraine and Moldova in all respects in terms of EU standards, it did not receive candidate status.
Then, by all outward signs, there was a feeling that Brussels had decided to “punish” Tbilisi by removing or postponing the issue of its European integration. But, according to the American publication Politico, the EU, “concerned about the possibility of rapprochement between Georgia and Russia, began to maneuver; previous claims against Georgia began to be classified as “problems of a technical rather than non-political nature” and began to be withdrawn.
On the eve of the current EU summit, documents appeared from the European Commission on European integration with recommendations to participants “to start negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova and to grant candidate status to Georgia.”
Now, according to the Georgian Foreign Ministry, the issue of granting candidate status to Georgia is supported by all EU countries and there is a high probability that Tbilisi will receive a positive decision “with the understanding that in the future Georgia will take certain steps in the direction of the reforms proposed from the EU.”
If this happens, events of high-quality political and geopolitical significance may occur in and around Georgia itself. The fact is that the government of the Georgian Dream party has never been pro-Russian and has carried out its active actions on the Western platform, saying that “it is part of a big European family.”
His problems with the EU were mainly down to internal political squabbles with opposition forces that appealed to the West as well. But now Brussels changed its tactics and stopped connecting its demands to Tbilisi with the confrontation between the government and the opposition, after which the government’s maneuverability in this direction began to narrow significantly.
The winner is the opposition, which will demand that the government take “nine European steps”, including holding free elections, depolarization, combating disinformation, de-oligarchization, rapprochement with the EU’s foreign policy, etc.
It is no coincidence that the President of Georgia, Salome Zurabishvili, said that she may participate in the parliamentary elections in the fall of 2024, and the ruling party “Georgian Dream” is confident that she will act as the leader of the largest opposition party “United National Movement”. and if he wins, he will head the country’s government.
This is a scenario for the implementation of the so-called “hardware coup” in Georgia with the overthrow of the “Georgian Dream” from power. Parliamentary elections in 2024 will be held entirely according to the proportional system, that is, according to party lists.
Parties that receive at least 5% of the vote will enter the legislature. According to recent surveys, between two and five parties in the country will be able to overcome the barrier to entry.
The Georgian Dream maintains its leadership in the party rating, and the National Movement takes second place. But the opposition can form tactical coalitions and has a chance to present a candidate for prime minister and approve the government it represents.
And in general, according to European diplomats, “granting candidate status to Tbilisi would be a timely decision.” In Georgia, there are now plans to create a new coalition that will include politicians such as Zurabishvili and former Prime Minister Georgi Gakharia, who follow pro-European and pro-Western policies.
That is, in fact, the Georgian authorities are at a certain crossroads today, and it will be very, very difficult for them to get out of this impasse.
“Clearly this will be a difficult task in an election year,” Zurabishvili says.
“The elections are likely to worsen the situation and the support of those political forces trying to implement the recommendations of the European Commission is very important.
But for now, the main and telling intrigue will be how Georgia’s new status will affect its foreign policy and whether it will begin to move away from Russia, as the EU wants.
There are important nuances in this issue that are related to the growing geopolitical competition in the Caucasus region. That’s the first thing.
Second: the EU, it seems, has not accidentally turned to the Caucasus, and perhaps a geopolitical alliance Tbilisi – Yerevan will be formed there, because the steps of the EU in the direction of Armenia are obvious, in contrast to the built coalition of Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan – Turkey.
Here, too, there is a connection in the direction of such geopolitical horizons as Russia and China, which cause some anxiety in Western countries that Georgia may fall out of their influence.
It is much more profitable for Georgia to successfully implement large international energy projects with China, Turkey and Azerbaijan than to strive for EU membership.
That is, a geopolitical trap is being created for Georgia: if you want to enter the EU, you must act in the interest of the European Union and the West.
Of course, in practice, everything is more complicated, and the Georgian Dream government is unlikely to be ready to take actions contrary to the interests of its country, although it is possible that Tbilisi will be forced to worsen relations with Moscow, and you should be prepared for complications of the situation in the region. That is why the situation in this area remains difficult to predict.
Translation: SM
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