Report: France Leads EU Rejection of Georgia Border Monitoring

A delegation from France, supported by Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Greece, as well as Germany, has rejected the idea of replacing the OSCE Border Monitoring with an EU project, the Jamestown Foundation reports.

This decision was made in Luxembourg on April 15-16, during a meeting of the ministers of foreign affairs of the European Union’s 25 member countries. According to the report, the EU refused to take over the OSCE operation under its flag, within the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) framework. It also rejected the idea of creating a coalition of willing states, without the EU flag, advocated by the Baltic and Central European Countries and backed by the Great Britain. It was argued that such a decision would undermine CFSP.

According to the EU’s External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, speaking after the ministerial meeting, the EU wants Georgia to negotiate a bilateral border protection agreement with Russia.

This latest decision quashes all attempts by the Georgian government to seek an international presence and monitoring at the Russo-Georgian border. The OSCE was forced to terminate its monitoring following a Russian veto.