Georgia’s democracy challenge ahead of local elections: view from Brussels – Virtual round table discussion
About the event
While Georgia has declared the EU integration its strategic goal, embedded in the Constitution, lately there have been some frictions between Tbilisi and Brussels. Following the political crisis in Georgia, EU has come close to applying conditionality for the first time, citing unfulfilled conditions for macro-financial assistance, notably, “to increase the independence, accountability and quality of the judicial system”. In addition, the recent incident of alleged covert surveillance of the EU diplomats by Georgian authorities challenges Georgia’s commitment to Vienna Convention and trust by international partners. Now the country is preparing for the local elections, which have been especially anticipated after the inter-party agreement brokered by Charles Michel. European attention is particularly important, to ensure that democratic reforms remain at the top of agenda of Georgia-EU relations. The discussion will focus around the following questions:
- What are the EU’s expectations for Georgia’s local elections and its outcomes?
- How to avoid cooling down of EU-Georgia relations, considering the challenging political environment?
- What is the reaction to the alleged spying on EU diplomats in Brussels, what follow-up actions we might expect from the EU?
The round-table discussion is organized under the framework of the project “Georgia’s Europeanization: assessing progress after 2020” financially supported by the Open Society Georgian Foundation (OSGF).
