The EU issued its annual report on Wednesday detailing the changes over the last year for the ten countries aspiring to join the bloc, including Georgia. A year after Georgia was granted candidate status, EU ambassador to Georgia Pawel Herczynski said ‘there are unfortunately not many reasons to celebrate. Due to the course of action taken by the Georgian government, EU leaders stopped Georgia’s accession process’.

While European politicians and EU officials have said to varying degrees of specificity about the damage that the ruling Georgian Dream party’s actions have done to its EU aspirations, Wednesday’s report provided the clearest evidence that Georgia has made minimal to no progress towards EU accession. 

In a statement in Tbilisi on Wednesday, Herczynski said the process ‘remains on hold as long as Georgia continues to move away from the EU, our values, and our principles’. 

Herczynski noted some positive developments in a few ‘technical’ areas, but added that ‘they are overshadowed by worrying democratic backsliding, and hostile anti-EU narratives and disinformation’. 

Failure to implement recommendations

The report found that Georgia made some limited progress. According to Herczynski, ‘a long-delayed market opening has partially begun’ in the energy sector, some ‘reform ambitions’ on environmental issues have been ‘noted’, and there were ‘important developments in public procurement’.

Nonetheless, the bulk of the report detailed very few positive changes in the problem areas identified following Georgia receiving candidate status. Moreover, in some areas, such as reforms to the judiciary and the ensuring of fundamental rights, Georgia experienced backsliding over the last year. 

Nikoloz Samkharadze, a Georgian Dream MP and the Chair of Foreign Relations Committee, sought to show some silver linings from the report, saying that it detailed ‘different levels of progress in 25 out of 35 enlargement chapters throughout the last 12 months’.

‘Thus, contrary to many allegations and speculations, Georgia is progressing on the EU path and is still ahead of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, and Ukraine in [the] fundamental rights' chapter’, Samkharadze claimed. Unlike Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have already moved forward to the negotiations stage. 

The statement was contradicted by Herczynski, who explicitly said ‘Georgia has made insignificant progress on implementing most of the nine [required reforms]’. 

The report ‘shows clear backsliding on the steps related to the fight against disinformation, political polarisation, on elections, and on human rights’.

Herczynski drew particular attention to the findings on the deteriorating state of the judiciary and fundamental rights, which he called ‘the most important chapter’.

‘Let me say clearly: this is unprecedented for a country that aspires to join the EU’. 

The report comes days after Georgia’s parliamentary elections, in which Georgian Dream won 54% of the vote amid widespread allegations of fraud and tampering. 

The EU has echoed the concerns about the voting process, but has so far refrained from officially declaring the election to be illegitimate. 

Herczynski emphasised the ‘conduct of elections’ is one of the nine required areas of progress, and said the parliamentary elections were marked by ‘serious irregularities’ which ‘are not compatible with the standards expected from a candidate to the EU’. 

‘International observers have not declared the elections to be free and fair. Neither have they declared the contrary’, Herczynski stressed. 

‘The EU’s door remains open for Georgia’

The report and the accompanying press release and statements did not categorically declare that all is lost for Georgia’s EU aspirations. 

There is still a path forward to the bloc, Herczynski said, but it requires ‘genuine political will and recommitment to our non-negotiable values and principles’. 

‘The enlargement process is a merit-based process and only if Georgia delivers on the reforms, it will advance on the EU path. There are no secrets and no shortcuts’. 

‘The EU’s door remains open for Georgia’, Herczynski said, but the explicit message behind the statement is that Georgia must change course if it wishes to actually enter the bloc. 

The enlargement report also contained an update on the progress of Turkey, which has been an EU candidate for 25 years. Negotiations with Turkey have remained at a standstill since 2018 as the country has failed to address ‘serious concerns about the continued deterioration of democratic standards, the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and respect for fundamental rights’.

As with Georgia, the report still indicated some areas of progress for Turkey. But few now think Turkey, with its current government, has much chance of joining the EU in the short or medium term. 

Speaking to the Georgian people, Herczynski said ‘please do not lose hope!’

He nonetheless stressed that the ‘future of EU-Georgia relations is now in the hands of the Georgian leaders’ and encouraged the government to read the report ‘very, very carefully’.