Georgia's Application for EU Membership: EU Questions are Known, Georgian Gov’t Answers Are Not
By Malkhaz Matsaberidze
Friday, May 6, 2022
The Government of Georgia has partially completed the EU Questionnaire on Accession and will answer all the questions in the near future, but the answers provided by the decision of the Government of Georgia remain unknown to the public.
The dramatic events in Ukraine, Saakashvili's deteriorating health, the publication of Bidzina Ivanishvili's telephone conversations, and all the related news streams have pushed back relatively and partially overshadowed a strategically important issue for Georgia - the start of the EU accession process.
Opinion polls show that the majority of Georgians support EU membership (according to recent polls, 88% of Georgians support EU membership). According to President Salome Zurabishvili, EU membership is the "greatest hope" of the Georgian people.
If it turns out that the government did not do everything to make Georgia join the European Union and the process was delayed because of it, it will lead to great public dissatisfaction. The Georgian government is not in a good position to apply for EU membership.
Georgia is no longer a ‘beacon of democracy’ in the region, Georgia's democracy is deteriorating from year to year in various international rankings, the Georgian Dream has refused to fulfill the agreement reached through the mediation of Council President Charles Michel Reform and steps were taken to establish an independent judiciary.
Georgia's application for EU membership would be in a much better position if the Charles Michel agreement were not rejected, but if there was a dialogue between the government and the opposition on its implementation. However, the reality is different and the situation in Georgian politics is sharply polarized. The pro-Western opposition believes that the Georgian Dream is not taking the issue of EU membership seriously, because if the reforms envisaged by the Charles Michel document and the European Union are required, a change of government in Georgia will be inevitable.
Georgia and Moldova received an EU Questionnaire on April 11. The first part of the Georgian questionnaire, a 42-page document consisting of 369 questions, was completed on May 2 and was personally handed over by the Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili to EU Ambassador Carl Hartzel. “It was a very time-consuming job and we completed it successfully,” Gharibashvili said. The second part of the questionnaire is a 239-page document that is much longer and includes 2300 questions. The Government of Georgia will complete the second part by May 13. The first part of the EU questionnaire was published by the Government of Georgia on April 15, and the second part on April 29.
But it is not expedient to make the answers public by the decision of the Georgian government. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Ilia Darchiashvili stated about it. "There are issues in the answers that should not be made public," Darchiashvili said. This answer did not satisfy the active part of the society.
On May 2, 30 NGOs said that public information could only be kept confidential if it constituted a professional, personal, commercial or state secret. If the document provided to the EU contains this kind of information, this part should be encrypted and the rest should be made public.
According to non-governmental organizations, the government should ensure transparency, openness and involvement of stakeholders in the process. NGOs and the opposition suggested that the government involve them in answering the questionnaire, but the Georgian Dream government filled out the questionnaire alone and, as already mentioned, did not intend to make the answers public.
The position of the Georgian government is unlikely to change. The NGOs were also disappointed with the response of the head of the EU Delegation to Georgia, who said on May 3 that it was up to the government to make the answers public.
The procedure for completing the questionnaire and granting candidate status takes years. The current government of Georgia, as already mentioned, was waiting for the application to be submitted in 2024, and the candidate status in 2030.
However, this time the process is accelerated due to the current events in Ukraine.
Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia have been given a month to complete the questionnaire, and the European Commission's assessment is expected to be ready in June. This assessment, according to Carl Hartzel, will be public. The reaction of the society will depend on the response of the European Union.