The Georgian government has indicated its intention several times to integrate into European space. In fact, ‘Euro-integration’ has been the main theme of Georgian political propaganda in the past 20 years.
Eduard Shevarnadze, who was the first to propose integration into the EU as the main political goal of Georgia, assured the people that entrance into the EU was a matter of a few years. Of course, Brussels
didn’t share his enthusiasm, indicating that, with the entrance of East European countries into the EU, the organization had exhausted its potential for expanding and other post-Soviet countries would have to settle for the ‘close neighborhood’ program.
However, the argument for possible EU membership is too strong for Georgian politicians to give up so easily. The difference between Shevarnadze’s and Saakashvili’s policy is that Shevarnadze used the slogan of ‘Euro-integration’ only as a décor for his policy of balance, while Saakashvili poses the issue of EU membership as real and is trying to obtain some substantial comments from EU officials concerning the terms of Georgia’s entrance to the organization.
He was so persistent that EU officials had to give him a direct answer. They also had to demonstrate that EU membership brings not only benefits, but also grave responsibilities and puts a considerable strain on the economy.
For example, Georgia has to answer all EU trade standards, including sanitary norms for products such as meat. At first glance, it seems that it is easy to make meat producers respect EU regulations concerning quality and sanitary standards, but when the Georgian government tried to implement measures necessary to introduce all these innovations… meat disappeared from Georgian shops, creating the first case of product deficit since Soviet times. This effect was in fact anticipated by EU officials and intended as a lesson for young and over-enthusiastic Georgian politicians.
The Georgian authorities who succeeded in fighting corruption in the corridors of high power failed to stop farmers from gambling on meat prices and all the measures undertaken to correct the situation resulted in the total disappearance of meat from stores. And the whole situation unfolded just before the elections… The first lesson of Brussels' officials was understood, but they decided to give Tbilisi another lesson, this time from another angle.
This time the attitude towards stray dogs in Georgia disturbed EU bureaucrats: in all EU countries stray dogs are caught and then kept and fed in special areas, while in Georgia (as in almost all CIS countries) these stray animals are caught and put down. After certain calculations, the Tbilisi mayor’s office came to the conclusion that the implication of this humane euro-standard would cost 10% of the current city budget. So are the city authorities supposed to spend the money on stray dogs, while there are still homeless and extremely poor people in their jurisdiction?
Maybe the Georgian authorities should come to understand that ‘Euro-integration’ is not the fairytale they tried to make it seem, but a hard and long process, for which the country’s economy isn’t
ready yet?
Georgy Kalatosishvili, exclusively to VK.
