Georgian civil society organizations are calling for a new rally for rapprochement with Europe this Sunday, July 3. They denounce what they consider to be the deliberate policy of the government to prevent the country from obtaining candidate status for EU membership. On 23rd June the European Council granted Ukraine and Moldova the status of candidates, subjecting Georgia to various conditions before re-examining its file.
With our special correspondent in Batumi, Regis Gente
Three quarters of Georgians support the European path in which the country has been engaged since the 1990s. So the prevailing feeling is that of missing the train of history. For two centuries, the Caucasian republic has felt that it belongs to the European family. For two decades, she has worked hard to get closer to it. So when the European authorities decided on June 23 not to grant Georgia the status of candidate country in the EU, the blow was hard for Ekaterina, a 40-year-old teacher who came to spend her holidays in Batumi, on the shores of the Black Sea. ” We had great hopes of taking this step towards Europe. This represents enormous potential for us. Our youth want to be part of Europe. But now, we’ll have to wait “, she regrets.
government undermining
Bitterness runs high among Georgia’s 3.7 million, with the government, controlled by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili giving the impression of having done everything to undermine the country’s chances of gaining EU candidate status , as expressed by Tengo, a young hotel employee. ” This failure is the fault of the government, he believes. When I look at our political life, I understand that he makes every possible mistake. There are plenty of reasons for this failure, but I’m sure the power is backed by Russia. »
The malaise is all the greater in Georgia since just a year ago it was one of the countries that had made the most efforts to integrate the EU, among the six in the Eastern PartnershipBrussels’ neighborhood policy in the former Soviet space.
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