The Politics of Flexibility: Exploring the Contested Statehood–EU Actorness Nexus in Georgia

ABSTRACT

This article examines whether contested statehood represents a hindering condition for EU actorness in Georgia, a country where the EU has had ample opportunities to engage with contested territories. It focuses on EU engagement in Georgia in three policy areas – conflict management, migration and mobility, and trade – where the implications of divergent conceptions of sovereignty, legitimate authority and territoriality are most salient. The article argues that the EU has gone to great lengths in adjusting its frameworks and their practical implementation to accommodate Georgia’s ‘problematic sovereignty’ by adopting a flexible approach: conflict management policies explicitly include the unrecognised territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; migration and mobility instruments omit any reference to Georgia’s contested statehood, implying the two entities’ default inclusion in visa liberalisation; and trade explicitly excludes them from the DCFTA, unless the Georgian government can ensure full enforcement in these territories. Regardless of the EU’s attempt at flexibility, the irreconcilable interests of the conflict parties, together with the EU’s privileging of international legal recognition, has resulted in a fractured record of EU actorness: strong actorness towards the 80% of Tbilisi-controlled territory, and low actorness towards the two unrecognised entities.

Notes

1. We use the terms ‘Sukhumi’ and ‘Tskhinvali’ as these are the most common in English and correspond to the relevant scholarly terminology. While acknowledging that these forms are disputed by the conflict parties, our choice is pragmatic and should not be interpreted as a political statement.

2. The EU itself admits it is not a neutral actor, phone interview European External Action Service officials (12 January 2017).

3. Interview Georgian Ministry of Defence official, Tbilisi (29 July 2016).

4. Interview European Commission official, Brussels (22 February 2018); Phone interview European External Action Service official (26 June 2018).

5. Phone interview Tbilisi-based journalist and civil society activist (16 December 2016); Phone interview European External Action Service official (20 December 2016).

6. Interview Delegation of the European Union to Georgia official, Tbilisi (26 April 2013).

7. According to an Abkhaz citizen, ‘Georgia lost any moral and legal right to rule Abkhazia [and it] will never again be a part of the Georgian state’, quoted in (Garb 2009, 238).

8. The Law of Georgia on the Occupied Territories, initiated by Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakhashvili, was adopted on 23 October 2008 and criminalises the separatist entities’ relations with the outside world.

9. Quoted in Agenda.Ge. 2015. Georgia ready for Visa-Free Travel to Europe. JAMnews. 18 December. See also AgendaGe. 2015. Will Abkhazians and Ossetians benefit from EU visa liberalization? 19 December.

10. E-mail interview former European External Action Service official (27 December 2016).

11. Phone interview Georgian think tank representative (5 July 2018).

12. Phone interview Georgian think tank representative (2 July 2018).

13. Phone interview official in the Office of the State Minister of Georgia for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration (9 December 2016).

14. Phone interview European External Action Service official (26 June 2018).

15. Here, the comparison with Transnistria is revealing, as it further underlines the EU’s privileging of external sovereignty and the potential practical implications of this approach to contested statehood. Transnistria’s willingness to trade through the Moldovan authorities largely explains why, and despite the existence of an identical territoriality clause in the EU-Moldova AA, the EU was in a position to extend the DCFTA to Transnistria. Despite the absence of an effective mechanism for the full verification of compliance by Transnistrian companies with DCFTA rules (Secrieriu 2016), Tiraspol’s principled acceptance of Moldova’s authority appears to have satisfied the EU’s concern for the respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity. Contrastingly, Abkhazia and South Ossetia’s refusal to be treated as integral parts of Georgia makes it improbable to find a compromise solution for the application of the DCFTA to these territories.