Europe Remains Ambiguous in Its South Caucasus Neighborhood
Reposted from Central Asia – Caucasus Analyst
The European Union’s decision to include Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia into the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) will not help to consolidate the approach of the European Union to the South Caucasus. The ENP remains vague in outlining specific modalities of cooperation and has little financial muscle, at least until 2007. Much would depend on the approach of individual EU states towards the South Caucasus countries, but the key role in “defining” ENP belongs to the leaderships of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Background: The European Parliament recommended the inclusion of the South Caucasus in the ENP in December 2003, while the European Commission (EC) endorsed this view in its May 2004 strategy paper on ENP.
The inclusion was formally approved in June 2004. The decisions were recommended by the EU Special Representative in South Caucasus, a position established by the EU to boost its foreign policy role in the region. European officials concede that the somewhat delayed decision to include the South Caucasus into ENP was encouraged to a large extent by the political change in Georgia.
Mikheil Saakashvili’s new government symbolically emphasized its European choice by displaying the EU/Council of Europe flags on all administrative buildings. President Saakashvili voiced his determination for EU accession. He appointed Salome Zourabichvili – a French diplomat of Georgian descent – as Foreign Minister to boost the European ties, and introduced the position of the State Minister for European Integration.
While the EU may have felt that it can not afford to stay out of the dynamic changes in the South Caucasus, inclusion of the region into ENP offers little clue as to how the Union plans to contribute. The ENP strategy paper says the Neighborhood should be based on common values of human rights, good governance and democracy.
During a recent visit, EU Commissioner Janez Potocnik stressed that the ENP has no links with EU membership. For all practical purposes, the EU simply lumps all current assistance programs in South Caucasus under the ENP banner, and there is no indication that the result will be more than the mechanical sum of its parts.
At the same time, Georgian officials and media have indicated that they view ENP as a step bringing the country closer to EU membership. President Saakashvili has declared that the country would seek membership in the round following the accession of the current candidates: Romania and Bulgaria.
The leaderships of Armenia and Azerbaijan have not yet equally unambiguous defined EU membership a foreign policy objective. EU policy could remain inarticulate in the South Caucasus for another reason: major European powers – Germany, France, and Great Britain – do not attach strategic importance to the region. At the same time, the EU is notorious for delays and inefficient administration of funding and assistance programs.
The events in Georgia have led to unprecedented EU activism: the Donor Conference organized in the Brussels on 16-17 June co-chaired by the EC and the World Bank pledged around US$1 billion in support of the Georgian government’s reform program for 2004-2006. The bulk of this funding comes through bilateral donors, however the EU pledged 125 million Euros, doubling its assistance level. These assistance programs may become a trial ground for testing new EU policies in Georgia, but the link to the region-wide ENP approach remains elusive.
Implications: The ENP is not a proactive strategy and is thus unlikely to bring fresh dynamism into EU policies in South Caucasus. Both European powers and the EC are preoccupied with the pains of enlargement, and looming mammoth tasks of enacting the EU Constitution and deciding on Turkish membership.
EU activism has increased only towards Georgia and this has two major components. On one side, it is indicative of donor competitiveness: the EU does not want to miss out on potential pro-reform breakthrough in Georgia.
However, there have already been hushed criticisms that the recently announced €4.65 million Rule of Law project overlaps with existing bilateral projects of EU member states. Another reason is the strong symbolic pull by the Georgian leadership which wastes no chance to emphasize its “Europeanness”, expressed in the ultimate aim of achieving EU membership.
However, a potentially dangerous contradiction is discernible. ENP is valuable to the Georgian government to the extent that it brings it closer to membership and can be presented as such to the Georgian constituency. Only the prospect of membership benefits can encourage sustainable and long-term democratic reforms in Georgia and the South Caucasus as a whole.
On the other hand, while speaking about “furthering shared European values”, ENP is clearly not intended as an “ante room” for potential aspirants. The fact that ENP covers the states of North Africa and the Middle East proves the point. This contradiction may end in frustration for Georgian authorities and damage the EU’s public image in Georgia.
Europe is adopting a somewhat skeptical wait-and-see approach towards Georgian reforms. European officials have scolded the Georgian authorities for human rights abuses in detention, restriction of Adjara’s autonomous rights, and failures to implement systemic reforms in the police force.
Yet the EU’s common foreign policy, albeit still in its infancy, has provided precious little political backing for the Georgian authorities to address immediate security concerns linked with breakaway provinces. A full-scale assistance in reforming the police force, similar to EU efforts in the Balkans, or the prospect of using EU peacekeepers, would have been a welcome sign of tangible support for the Georgian people and leadership.
Speaking to the Russian press in July, President Saakashvili for the first time sounded downbeat of the EU. He said the EU membership is not “an end in itself, but a part of the program aimed at increasing the country’s wealth, economic and political potential”. The ENP Strategy Paper says the Neighborhood Initiative is a flexible mechanism, enabling for bilateral definition of priorities. So far, Georgia has indicated an intention for the closest possible integration with the EU, and the ENP may not be up to the task of accommodating such an ambitious aim.
Moreover, South Caucasian states attach varied degrees of importance to ENP, which could complicate the formulation of a shared policy in Brussels. Similar problems have plagued “regional” EU programs for years, especially in the fields of rule of law and democracy: the uniform programs were too much for one country and too little for another, damaging the efficiency of assistance.
Conclusions: The ENP would have a value for the South Caucasus if it would provide for country-specific programming based on mutually agreed priorities and flexible, performance-based assistance schemes. It is unclear whether the ENP format would allow for vast discrepancies in the format of bilateral programs. Georgia needs a ENP framework setup similar to a Membership Action Plan, where the degree of progress towards EU standards could be gauged. Only such a program could encourage further reforms and give Georgia’s civil society a strong lever for monitoring the government performance. Armenia and Azerbaijan may wish for different approaches.
As it stands, the ENP is a political tool, used by the EU to pinpoint its interest in the South Caucasus and by the national governments, especially in Georgia, to show its progress towards EU membership. As the EU’s main priorities lie elsewhere, it will be the responsibility of the South Caucasus governments to make ENP a useful tool for the development of their countries.
Author: Jaba Devdariani is an analyst of South Caucasus affairs and founder of the internet magazine Civil Georgia – www.civil.ge