Georgia’s European prospects

The crisis in Ukraine has changed many things in the world. European Union member states have started looking differently at the countries that despite Russia’s pressure, still keep on striving for integration with the EU.

If before the Eastern Partnership countries were not given the chance to unite under the EU umbrella, today there is speculation in Brussels about the European prospects of these EaP countries.

In the last document adopted over the destabilization in Ukraine, the European prospects of Georgia were also highlighted.

The EaP project does not exclude the chances for the participant countries to become the EU members.

Georgian officials believe that the EU’s position becomes realistic, and it is in compliance with Georgia’s determination to join the EU.

Of course, everybody stresses that these developments are the result of Russia’s conduct against Ukraine.

So, the scheme is as such: certain former Soviet Union counties – Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova in particular – want to join the EU. Russia does not want this to happen. As such it offers an alternative – the Eurasian Union– in attempting to reanimate the Soviet Union.

Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova have become a battlefield for two ideologies – pro-EU and pro-Russian. The rules of the game established by Brussels and Moscow are radically different from one another. Europeans send their concern, which cannot stop the Russian tanks. If Russia sees that Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are finally integrating with the EU, Moscow might speed- up the events and militarily attack these three countries.

At least one thing is positive amid the current developments – Western countries finally realize the Kremlin’s aggressive policy. This gives hope to Georgians that such an attitude from the EU and Russia might accelerate another issue as well, which is Georgia’s moves to join NATO.

All these steps should be taken in time, otherwise, Moscow might take preventive provokations and occupy these countries, or at least activate civil confrontation or cause bloodshed there, which would definitely prevent their accession into NATO and the EU.