By Giorgi Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi, exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
'Disappointment' is the gist of the comments on the EU Riga Summit in Georgia. The refrain is common for the opposition, public and the government, although the president, the prime minister and the foreign minister are trying to retain political correctness and diplomatic language. Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said that 'Georgia did the maximum it could' in Riga. The phrase, considering the public expectations from the Eastern Partnership summit, literally means the following: it was pointless to hope for more than woolly diplomatic phrases about 'support for the consistent course of Georgia in fulfilling its committments' without mentioning the visa regime as the main 'prize' preventing European integration and the pro-Western course into something more tangible for ordinary folk.
Georgia got neither a visa-free regime nor inclusion of the prospects of such a regime in the final document. The resolution of the summit mentions prospects of liberalization, which may imply a simplification of visa procedures for Georgians wishing to visit Europe, not a lifting of visas.
The EU is actually making efforts in this direction: Georgians paid for a Schengen visa less than two-three years ago and the time required to process documents was cut at most of the embassies of the Schengen zone states. But a visa-free regime is one thing, simplification of procedures is an absolutely different one. Brussels is trying to equivocate the notions. However, an ordinary Tbilisi taxi driver or an unemployed resident is not that easy to trick: a Schengen visa issued through simplified procedures will be available only for those who could get one regardless.
It is believed that the EU's refusal to grant a visa-free regime is motivated by the unsettled conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the high unemployment rate, trafficking problem, crime rate and migration to the country from Asia and Africa. The latter may use Georgia as a conduit to Europe. The argument seems more like a demagogic excuse: it is unclear how citizens of Asian and African states will flow to the EU without a Georgian passport, even if the European Union imposes a visa-free regime for Georgian citizens. A visa-free regime does not mean lack of passport checks at the border. But the excuse allows European bureaucracy (which is traditionally reluctant to say a clear 'no') to bide its time and convince the Georgian authorities to impose limitations on citizens from Asia and Africa. As a result, Georgia lost thousands of tourists, small investors and students of commercial education centers. Prospects of lifting the visa regime have never become distinct, however.
Other problems are quite serious, but Moldova has been granted a visa-free regime with the EU, despite its failure to resolve them. What is the cause of the decline? I got an answer to this question from a university colleague working at a Georgian diplomatic mission in a European country. In his words, European diplomats still bear in mind the 'geographical factor', refusing to clarify what exactly they imply.
But the mentioning of the factor is symptomatic per se. The EU is used to regarding a problem in a regional context. First of all, Georgia cannot be considered in the same light as Ukraine. Kiev and Tbilisi move at different paces in the liberalization process, but granting a visa-regime to Georgia and declining the same to Ukraine is impossible, even despite the precedent in Moldova, whose interests were lobbied for by Romania.
Secondly, according to European tradition Georgia and the South Caucasus are not geographically a part of the European contingent. Traditionally for European capitals and universities, the borders of Europe run through the Bosphorus, the main Caucasian gorge and the Urals.
The mentioning of the geographical factor by European diplomats means that Brussels does not want to create another dangerous precedent by granting a visa-free regime to Georgia.
The regional and the geographical contexts for discussions of a visa-free regime provoke users of social networks to ask a loaded question: 'If Tbilisi manages to reach an agreement on restoration of diplomatic ties with Moscow, who will lift visas for Georgian citizens faster: the EU or Russia?' The question is rhetorical but quite conspicuous and meaningful for ordinary folk, for the elite has never had problems with getting Schengen visas.
