Tbilisi pays for European association

Giorgi Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Especially for Vestnik Kavkaza

An inspection team of the EU has visited Tbilisi to verify the Georgian leadership's compliance with the "action plan" for visa liberalization, which is seen in Tbilisi as part of a broader "road map" to achieve a visa-free regime with the EU. However, in pursuit of a visa-free regime, Georgia must make decisions that cause particular harm to the economy. For example, after copying the rules of the Schengen zone on issuing short-stay visas for only 90 days during a 180-day period (the previous period was 180 days in 12 months and, after the ban on issuing visas directly at the border (in airports ), Georgia for the first time in the last 10 years has lost tourists.

According to the former head of the Department of Tourism at the Ministry of the Economy, Giorgi Sigua, as a result of the introduction of these measures alone, in respect of visitors from Asia and Africa (insisted on by Europeans), Georgia has lost about 300 thousand visitors and half a billion dollars. "I and Economy Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili knew what losses this could lead to, but could not convince the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the unacceptability of such innovations," Mr. Sigua writes on his Facebook page.

It is understandable that the Foreign Ministry officials did not listen to their arguments, not out of "meanness" or a desire to harm their country, but because of the strategic line of rapprochement with the EU, harmonization of legislation, including in the field of migration, and copying of the Schengen rules.

All these obligations are spelled out in the Foundation Agreement 'On the Association of Georgia with the EU', which was officially signed in June last year. In that document, of course, it is not directly written that Georgian border guards should refuse to let a student from Pakistan pass through (because visas are no longer issued at the border), although he studies at the paying faculty of Tbilisi Medical University. But the reality is turning out that way, when the Georgian side is trying to "harmonize" its legislation with the strict rules of the Schengen zone.

According to the same rules, the Pakistani student can only be in Georgia for 90 days, that is, no more than one semester, and then has to leave home to go to "friendly" India (where, unlike Pakistan, there is a Georgian Consulate) for a visa. Otherwise, the money paid for the year ahead for his studies at the university will be lost. So the following year, the same student generally prefers to leave Georgia, and his friend will give up the idea of going to school in a distant country, where since Soviet times there has been a good medical school. This painful process has already been felt by a number of universities in Tbilisi, where in the past there were surprising numbers of students from Asian and African countries.

The case with small investors is even worse: according to the current rule, a long-term visa is granted only to those who invest more than 300 thousand dollars in the country. But when the Schengen rate of '90 days within six months' was not in operation in Georgia, small businesses, including travel agents, brokers and representatives of companies could be located in Georgia and work in peace, in the expectation of an automatic extension of their visas without having to leave the country for a new one. Now this is no longer possible. Accordingly, Georgia has lost not only hundreds of thousands of tourists, but also thousands of small entrepreneurs. But not only are they themselves leaving, they are also taking away their investments, in an environment where the national currency is already weakened due to the devaluation of the ruble and the reduction of remittances from the Russian Federation. Naturally, the authorities are beginning to worry. Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is considered the de facto leader of the government, said this decision was a mistake by the Foreign Ministry, but he is "at fault, too, having occupied the post of prime minister." In this case, Ivanishvili diplomatically did not mention the agreement on the European Association.

Nevertheless, work on correcting the errors has already begun: officials are feverishly looking for loopholes in order not to lose investors, without violating the laws of the Schengen zone. For example, according to Vestnik Kavkaza, they have worked out agreement on the issue of reducing the size of an investment (which gives the right to automatically receive a long-term visa) from 300 thousand dollars to 30 thousand, as well as the mechanism for issuing electronic visas. Although experts warn that thus is unlikely to suit the EU, whose leaders require partner countries to maximize migration control. The saddest thing is that no guarantees of a visa-free regime of Georgia with the EU are given, even if it fulfills all the points of the plan and passes the "road map" to the end. That is, at the end of this path, Georgia could remain without liberalization of the visa arrangements with the EU, losing a lot of injections into what was an already weak economy.