Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
Olivér Várhelyi, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement
On June 23, 2022 the European Council made a historic decision to grant Georgia a European perspective and potential membership candidate status. This gave a significant impetus to the European integration process in Georgia. 12 priorities were named as the prerequisite for granting the candidate status. Addressing these priorities will have a significant impact on the process of democratization of Georgia, and will mean overcoming structural problems facing the country related to independence of the judiciary and state institutions, human rights violations, elite corruption, gender equality.
Georgian civil society firmly supports the country's integration into the European Union. European integration is an important mechanism for increasing government accountability. We believe that the Government of Georgian bears full responsibility for the implementation of the priorities.
On the one hand, the Government of Georgia states that it will address the priorities set as prerequisites for receiving the European Union membership candidate status. On the other hand, it is a matter of great debate in the Georgian public whether the decisions made by the Georgian Government will actually secure the candidate status for the country, since at this stage the government does not show enough political will and readiness to fully implement the 12 priorities.
Therefore, we believe that it is extremely important at this stage to increase oversight of the implementation process of the priorities set by the European Commission, which, taking into account the reality in Georgia, require taking specific steps towards result-oriented reforms and directing the law on de-oligarchization towards the real problem.
Taking the above into account, representatives of the Georgian civil society would like to appeal to you with a request to consider the possibility of producing an interim report on Georgia’s efforts to fulfill the 12 priorities by March 2023, in addition to the planned report later the same year. We also believe that the introduction of milestones and time-frames to the implementation process would be important, since this would increase the quality of implementation of the priorities set by the European Commission as well as the accountability of the Georgian authorities.
Transparency International Georgia
Open Society Georgia Foundation
Economic Policy Research Center
Civil Initiatives and Innovations Center
Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF) - Georgia