Ukraine and Georgia Decoupled: What Comes Next?

By Iveri Kekenadze Gustafsson

At the 2023 Vilnius Summit, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) eventually confirmed the decoupling of Ukraine and Georgia by allowing Ukraine to be invited into the alliance without “the need for the Membership Action Plan” (MAP) in the future, while for Georgia, the MAP remains “an integral part of the process.”

Before that, in June 2022, the tripartite configuration of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, the so-called “Association Trio”, was also unofficially divided by the European Union (EU). The EU granted Ukraine and Moldova candidate status for membership but denied it to Georgia until the conditions were met.

The decoupling of Ukraine and Georgia is not only external. Despite a history of strategic partnership and amicable attitudes among people, the recent setback outlines deteriorating relations on key issues. Georgia’s fast-increasing economic dependence on Russia, the allegations of Russian sanctions evasion, and the refusal to transfer military aid to Ukraine exacerbate the already tense relations.

Background 

Georgia and Ukraine have much in common: they have been occupied by the Russian Empire and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) for nearly two centuries. After the fall of the Soviet Union, both countries experienced turbulent times throughout the 1990s, colour revolutions: the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, as well as Russia’s aggression.

At the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest, Georgia and Ukraine were denied the MAP; however, the declaration stated they would eventually become NATO members. In August that year, Russia invaded Georgia and declared the occupied regions, Abkhazia and the so-called “South Ossetia”, independent states. Russia repeated this pattern in Ukraine by annexing Crimea and initiating the war in the Donbas region in 2014.

Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022, Ukraine applied for EU membership, and the rest of the Association Trio immediately followed the plea.

EU and NATO Membership Perspectives

Since June 2022, Ukraine has been ahead of Georgia’s road to EU membership. While Kyiv has seven priorities to address before the accession negotiations can be opened, Georgia has twelve recommendations to fulfil before obtaining EU candidate status. So far, Georgia has only completed three out of twelve recommendations, so the chances of Georgia becoming an EU candidate country in the near future are relatively limited.

The picture is rather dim for Georgia regarding EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) alignment. Convergence in the CFSP is essential in the EU accession process. Both the EU-Georgia Association Agreement (AA) and the Commission’s Analytical Report on Georgia’s EU membership stress the significance of convergence regarding CFSP matters. While Ukraine’s alignment rate has been increasing throughout the years and EU membership hopefuls form a QUAD to fully align with the CFSP, Georgia is falling behind. By May 2023, the difference between Georgia and Ukraine in CFSP convergence was at a whopping 58%, characterising the gap between the two countries’ policies. According to Eka Akobia, Dean of the Caucasus School of Governance, “the problem is not only quantitative but also qualitative”.

Figure 1. Association Trio Alignment with the EU CFSP. Accessed August 4, 2023

When it comes to NATO, the decoupling is even more visible. Even though Ukraine did not get the roadmap to join NATO at the 2023 Vilnius Summit, the shift of the discourse was evident, and progress was made by removing the MAP requirement for Ukraine. In contrast, the Georgian Prime Minister (PM) allegedly was not invited to the Summit following his bizarre comments, stating that Ukraine’s NATO aspiration was “one of the main reasons for” Russia’s war in Ukraine. Estonian PM Kaja Kallas claimed that the Georgian leadership “does not really believe in” NATO membership. 

Leadership Mismatch

The souring of Georgia-Ukraine relations started before Russia’s full-scale invasion. The central figure affecting these strained ties is Mikheil Saakashvili, the currently imprisoned and hospitalised former President of Georgia, who also happens to be a Ukrainian citizen and the former Head of Zelenskyy’s National Reform Council. Before his return from exile to Georgia in 2021, he rebranded himself as a figurehead for the anti-corruption movement in Ukraine. Due to Saakashvili’s poor health, Ukraine repeatedly requested his transfer abroad for medical treatment; Zelensky even accused Russia of using the Georgian Government to “try to kill him” and ordered the Georgian ambassador to Ukraine to leave the country. The Georgian Government, which uses Saakashvili as a scapegoat and accuses him of the 2008 War onset, denies the political motivations behind his imprisonment. 

Georgia had an “ambivalent” reaction to the war, and the current Georgian PM, Irakli Garibashvili, has yet to visit Ukraine. During the second European Political Community Summit in Moldova, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy drew parallels between Georgia and Belarus as two examples of “creeping Russian occupation”. Moreover, Mykhailo Podolyak, Zelenskyy’s advisor, has regularly criticised Georgia for its lack of support for Ukraine. 

In addition, Georgia allows Russian citizens to enter the country without visa requirements and recently restored direct flights to and from Russia, a move that Ukraine responded to by sanctioning flag carrier Georgian Airways.

What Comes Next?

Georgia and Ukraine await the October 2023 comprehensive evaluations from the European Commission to determine whether they meet the conditions to move forward in their accession process. There is still a glimpse of hope that because of the overwhelmingly pro-EU population and robust civil society, Georgia will be granted EU candidate status and not be left out to get further exposed to Russian influence. 

Unlike Ukraine’s progress, which even moved the Christmas date to December 25 to distance itself from the Putin-aligned Russian Orthodox Church, which celebrates Christmas on January 7, the Georgian Government hails its “pragmatic” and “non-irritation” foreign policy. Furthermore, in the era of de-risking, Georgia established a strategic partnership with China, another move that elevated uncertainty over its foreign policy and was criticised by some EU officials. 

With or without MAP, there is no prospect of accelerated accession to NATO, neither for Ukraine nor for Georgia, until Russia’s war in Ukraine has a specific outcome. As Ukraine fights against the invader with periodically reluctant support from the West and disputed opinions from the Global South, its aspirations are clear. Contrary to that, Georgia could be missing out on a historic opportunity on the Euro-Atlantic path.

Iveri Kekenadze Gustafsson (He/Him) is a recent graduate of the MA programme in European Studies at Lund University. He holds a BA in International Relations from Tbilisi State University and another BA degree in Performance Studies (Classical Piano) from Tbilisi State Conservatoire. His research interests include internationalisation, leadership and organisation of Higher Education, European integration, and governance in the EU’s eastern neighbourhood.