Georgia is part of the Caucasus. That is the mountainous region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. It is the borderlands and natural barrier between Europe and West Asia.



The EU has declared George to be European. This is historically inaccurate. And it is firmly in Russia's sphere of influence. NATO stopped its past flirtation with making Georgia a member causing Russia to invade and take territory in 2008. The EU is sending mixed signals regarding Georgia's status.


Georgia Is Europe but Faces Growing Risk of Losing Its Euro-Atlantic Future

As expected, at the European Union summit in Brussels, on June 23, the European Council decided not to award membership candidate status to Georgia. The EU’s top agenda-setting body, composed of the bloc’s heads of state and government, only conceded its readiness to grant the status of a candidate country to Georgia once Tbilisi addressed all of the reservations specified in the European Commission’s opinion on the Georgian membership application. Pro-Kremlin media outlets cynically panned the EU decision: “Europe Betrayed Georgia,” RIA Novosti thundered on its pages (RIA Novosti, June 23). In the days leading up to the EU summit, many European leaders, including the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, called on Europe’s leaders to officially grant candidate status to all three aspiring countries—Georgia as well as Ukraine and Moldova (Twitter.com/CharlesMichel, June 20). The United States Congressional Helsinki Commission made a similar appeal (Csce.gov, June 22). But this did not help Georgia’s case.

Although Georgia was refused EU candidate status, the bloc did recognize the country’s European perspective. The EU decision, thus, finally ended the dispute about whether Georgia is a European country or not. However, Brussels confronted the Georgian authorities, accusing them of sustaining oligarchic rule.

More broadly, the June 23 decision impacted the geopolitical alignment in the region. First of all, Georgia is now in danger of losing its place in the so-called Eastern Partnership EU trio—Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova. With this geopolitical fracture, there is a real danger that as the only one of the three without a definitive EU membership track, Georgia could be left alone and compelled to “return” to the South Caucasus region, which is associated with Russia’s “backyard.” It is quite symbolic that almost immediately following the recommendation of the European Commission to reject Georgia’s candidate status, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili went on a working visit not to Brussels but to Yerevan, Armenia ( , June 21). With this statement, he effectively repeated a Russian talking point, jeopardizing the prospects of one day integrating his country into the North Atlantic Alliance. Moreover, Garibashvili conspicuously made this remark only a week before NATO was scheduled to hold its summit in Madrid (June 28–30), thereby reinforcing suspicions both at home and abroad that the country’s authorities are increasingly deviating from a clear Euro-Atlantic course.