Dispute on Wording Foils Unanimous Vote on Parliament’s Statement on EU Visa Liberalisation

The Parliament adopted on December 10 a statement, proposed by an MP from opposition Free Democrats party, calling on the European Union to lift visa requirements for Georgia, but disagreement on its wording made it impossible for the draft to receive unanimous support of lawmakers.
 
The appeal comes ahead of the European Commission’s upcoming progress report on how Georgia is implementing its Visa Liberalisation Action Plan (VLAP) – set of reform targets that a country has to meet in order to get short-term visa free travel rules with the Schengen area. The report is expected for December 15.

If the European Commission report is positive and finds that all the benchmarks under the VLAP are achieved, then it will be up to the EU member states and the European Parliament to give final go-ahead to lifting visa requirements.

The German newspaper Die Welt reported on December 9 citing unnamed diplomatic source in Brussels that the European Commission’s report will be positive and visa-free travel rules may be granted to Georgia and Ukraine by mid-2016. But in case of Ukraine the European Commission is expected to point out that the country has yet to take measures in some of the areas, specifically in fight against corruption by the spring 2016, according to Die Welt.

The Georgian Parliament’s appeal to the EU institutions was debated on December 9 and adopted by the Parliament on December 10 with 76 votes.

The Georgian Dream parliamentary majority group and lawmakers from the Free Democrats opposition party supported the text.

Although UNM lawmakers reiterated their “firm support” for EU visa liberalisation for Georgia, they abstained from vote because the text did not contain a call to the Georgian government “not to undertake any step that may undermine” Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration process.

“No matter which political part is in power, it [EU visa-free travel rules] is important and needed for the Georgian people… Let’s call on the Georgian government [in the text] not to do anything – be it against Rustavi 2 or political opponents – that can hamper this process. It will be desirable to reflect it in the text,” UNM MP Giorgi Baramidze said during the debates on December 9.

A senior GD lawmaker Giorgi Volski responded that the UNM’s proposal implied that “as if the government has already made some mistakes that were detrimental to the visa liberalisation process and now we should call on the government not to repeat those mistakes.”

“Of course we will not support such a clause [in the statement],” said GD MP Volski, who chairs the largest parliamentary faction of Georgian Dream.

Sponsor of the draft, MP Victor Dolidze of the Free Democrats, who presented the text to lawmakers at the parliamentary session, said that the proposed text aimed at “focusing on positive aspects” and showing “consolidated position” of political groups in the Parliament. For that reason, MP Dolidze said, he tried to draft “maximally balanced” text.

“I agree with that point [of UNM MPs] and I would have added even more points and problems over which the opposition is criticizing the government, but this document and its idea is… to ask the EU to speed up the process of granting visa-free travel rules to Georgia,” MP Dolidze said.

“I do not see any reason why this document should not be supported,” he added.

A senior UNM MP Giorgi Gabashvili said that there is no debate about substance of this statement – “it is a fact that Georgia deserves EU visa waiver and this issue is not an issue of dispute.”

“But there is another issue – in order for the Parliament to have unanimously adopted statement, the Parliament should be adequate to developments ongoing in the country,” MP Gabashvili said.

“It is the responsibility of the ruling majority to make at least minimal compromise for the sake of adopting multi-party statement,” he said.

He then offered the GD an alternative wording, calling on the government “to realize its special responsibility in the necessity of having consolidated democracy in the country and to protect democratic standards such as free and fair elections, rule of law, judicial independence, property rights, human rights and transparency.”

The proposal was not accepted by the GD lawmakers.

Appeal of the Georgian Parliament to the European Commission, European Parliament, Council of the EU, European Council and the European External Action Service, adopted by the Parliament on December 9, says that the “European aspiration and integration to the European and Euro-Atlantic structures represents unwavering will and a historic choice of the Georgian people.”

The statement says that the Parliament “fully confirms progress made by Georgia in the process of implementing commitments envisaged by the Visa Liberalisation Action Plan and it is looking forward that achievements made by the Georgian authorities will be appropriately acknowledged and reflected in a positive assessment of the EU in December.”

It expresses hope that the European Commission’s positive recommendation in favor of lifting visa requirements “will be followed by timely consent of the Council of the EU.”
 
In the same statement the Parliament calls on Belgium – the only EU-member state which has not yet ratified the EU-Georgia Association Agreement – to complete the ratification of the treaty.

Meanwhile a separate statement joined by fourteen non-parliamentary opposition parties was handed over to the EU delegation in Tbilisi on December 8, which also calls for granting visa-free travel rules to Georgia.

“We the Georgian political parties openly state that EU integration is the firmly expressed will of the large majority of the people of Georgia and that this course of action has no alternative for the secure, sustainable and democratic development of our country,” reads the statement, which was initiated by the New Rights Party. “We believe that getting visa liberalization after the fulfillment of obligations to the EU will be a serious motivation for Georgia to continue political, economic and other reforms.”

It was the New Rights Party, which was the first to float the idea of joint address of Georgian political parties to the EU institutions. The proposal was voiced by the New Rights after PM Irakli Garibashvili accused in November UNM opposition party of lobbying in EU institutions against granting Georgia a visa free travel regime to the Schengen area while the Georgian Dream ruling coalition is in government. UNM responded at the time that this allegation was part of the government’s blame-shifting tactics. 

New Rights Party-initiated statement was joined by Democratic Movement-United Georgia, led by Nino Burjanadze; Alliance of Patriots of Georgia; European Democrats; National-Democratic Party; Free Georgia; Freedom; Labor Party; Reformers; Civic Alliance for Freedom; Political Movement of Veterans of Law Enforcement Agencies and Patriots; Women’s Party for Justice and Equality; Traditionalists Union, and Christian-Democratic Party. Parliamentary parties – Republican Party (part of the GD ruling coalition); UNM and Free Democrats, also signed it.

The draft of Parliament’s appeal to the EU institutions says that it “welcomes” spirit of this joint statement made by the non-parliamentary opposition parties, which was also joined by some parliamentary parties.

The Parliament is expected to put the draft of the appeal to the EU institutions on vote at a session on December 10.