Georgia and NATO Ahead of Vilnius Summit: Where did the Spark Go?

Public support for NATO integration in Georgia has been overwhelming, as has been the consensus among mainstream political parties on the goal of NATO membership. The Georgian Constitution was revised in 2018 to include a clause stating that “all government institutions should work towards the goal of Georgia’s eventual NATO membership.” NATO accession has been seen as the surest way to reach the “safe harbor” where the country could flourish and truly realize its potential. But while public support remains high – the recent poll has shown 80% say Georgia should join – the spark of determination has faded, even as the international context has changed dramatically and even as what once seemed unthinkable in terms of military and security assistance to Russia’s neighbors now increasingly feels like an imperative.

Nata Koridze is the managing editor of Civil.ge; she previously worked closely on NATO issues as a Georgian diplomat

Great Expectations

Relations between the Alliance and Georgia advanced steadily under all Georgian governments ever since Eduard Shevardnadze promised “to knock on NATO’s door” at the NATO Prague Summit in 2002.

Twenty-one years on, Georgia is officially a NATO aspirant country. At the 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO issued a political commitment to Georgia’s membership, even as it stopped short of granting the Membership Action Plan/MAP.

In NATO’s official language “Georgia’s relationship with the Alliance contains all the practical tools to prepare for eventual membership.” It has the full set of integration mechanisms for this purpose: NATO-Georgia Commission to steer the political dialogue and practical cooperation, Annual National Programme to measure Georgia’s reforms progress in various areas, and Substantial NATO-Georgia Package to enhance the country’s interoperability, defense capabilities and security cooperation with NATO. None of the aspirant countries have had this set of instruments at their disposal before.

Georgia is a member of the Enhanced Opportunities Partners’ group, which comprises six countries considered the most interoperable partners of NATO. The status was granted to Georgia largely due to its substantial contribution to NATO operations in Afghanistan. Georgia is also a part of the NATO Response Force.

Political symbolism and high-level contacts matter too. Georgia hosted North Atlantic Council five times and the NATO Military Committee four times, unprecedented for a non-member of NATO.

Responding to the new level of threat and vulnerability, the 2022 NATO Madrid Summit provided Georgia and other neighbors of Russia with tailored political and practical support to enhance their resilience and defensibility.

Despite the lack of progress on the political side of the membership process in recent years, the practical dimension of NATO-Georgia relations, which suffered somewhat during the pandemic, appeared to be developing steadily.

Signs of trouble

Visible signs of trouble have emerged in the last couple of years. In 2022, during his visit to Tbilisi, the NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, Javier Colomina, said that NATO was dissatisfied with the pace of implementation of reforms. He said: “In the last year- year-and-half, things have been stalled, and we are concerned, as an Alliance and the Allies themselves.”

This was the first time a NATO official publicly made such a statement, pointing to a series of preceding attempts to impart the same message behind closed doors. Colomina specifically mentioned a set of 10 recommendations that NATO had made to Georgia in the Annual National Programme assessment, particularly reforms in judicial, electoral, and security sectors.

During his visit to Georgia last month, Colomina had to reinforce this message, specifying that NATO was concerned both about the “rhythm” of reforms and their “substance.” The official said he had “conveyed concerns about the level of implementation of reforms, in particular, judicial and electoral reforms,” as well as decisions on the Central Election Commission to the Georgian leadership.

Georgia’s Annual National Programme and the recommendations that NATO makes each year as part of its assessment are classified documents. But it is obvious from the comments of the NATO official that the Alliance’s concerns largely overlap with the EU’s twelve conditions for obtaining the EU candidacy.

Commenting on the reforms, Colomina said: “We don’t have those timeframes as the EU does, but the concern is the same because our recommendations of 2021 were mostly the same as the twelve recommendations of the EU.” Colomina also told the journalists that Georgia would be represented at the NATO Vilnius Summit at the level of the Foreign Minister, as opposed to Prime Minister.

Communication blunder or policy shift?

Georgia’s bid for NATO membership has been weakened by the completion in September 2021 of the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan. The Allies highly valued the contribution and professionalism of the Georgian contingent, which served without caveats and in the most dangerous provinces of Afghanistan. The mission allowed Georgia to showcase its commitment and ability to contribute to shared Euro-Atlantic security. Georgia’s substantial contribution to the RSM has done much to increase the country’s political and military weight within the Alliance. The end of the operation automatically decreased Georgia’s visibility in the Alliance and thus weakened its case for membership.

But more damaging has been the rhetoric of key political figures and the backsliding on reforms in Georgia.

At last year’s Independence Day celebrations, NATO was conspicuously absent from the Prime Minister’s and the President’s (and Commander-in-Chief’s) speeches. Neither mentioned Georgia’s NATO aspirations, a move that did not go unnoticed by pundits. NATO integration was also absent from this year’s addresses to the nation.

This was followed by the Prime Minister’s remarks on Georgia’s NATO integration, made at the Qatar Economic Forum last year, when he said (without being prompted) that to join NATO, Georgia must first resolve its territorial conflicts.

These remarks, which sharply contradict the official Georgian position and language which goes back decades, caused a stir and dismay among Georgian experts, politicians, and analysts. It has been Georgian diplomacy’s consistent position that the conflict with Russia and the occupied territories cannot be linked to the question of Georgia’s membership, as this would essentially mean giving Russia a veto over Georgia’s accession and further encourage Russia’s aggressive policy aimed at halting its neighbors’ Euro-Atlantic integration.

But Georgia standing with NATO has probably been most damaged by PM Garibashvili’s remarks at the GLOBSEC forum in Bratislava in May this year, where he named NATO as “one of the main reasons for war in Ukraine.” He also expanded, saying that “one of the reasons for the war was Ukraine’s will and determination to become a member of NATO,” adding: “We see the consequences.” These remarks by the Prime Minister again caused a considerable outcry at home, in the international community, and among Georgia’s partners, who were fast to point out that the Georgian PM’s narrative of blaming NATO for its brutal war against Ukraine echoes word for word that of Putin’s and his propagandists’.

No elbow grease

But it is not only rhetoric – which can be written down as a blunder or a particularly misguided politician’s position. Georgia’s recent pursuit of NATO integration has been half-hearted, as evidenced by series of bureaucratic and political omissions.

Since 2019 Georgia has not held an annual NATO-Georgia Public Diplomacy Forum and has not hosted a visit by the North Atlantic Council, nor NATO Secretary General or his Deputy. Georgia fell short of NATO-mandated spending of 2% of GDP on defense – something the country tended to pursue. Defense spending fell steadily in recent years and hit an all-time low of just under 1.7% in 2021.

Georgian Dream government’s narrative that Georgia’s Western partners have been trying to “drag” Georgia into a war and open a second front, as well as the government’s generally ambivalent position on Russia’s war against Ukraine, did not help Georgia’s case within NATO, either. The Minister of Defense formally participates in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (Rammstein group), which plans military aid to Ukraine. Still, Tbilisi failed to give even symbolic non-lethal assistance to the Ukrainian military.

NATO officials are irked by Georgia’s ambiguity over joining the Alliance in aiding Ukraine, and their irritation has been seeping out to the media.

Javier Colomina, during his recent visit, said NATO was concerned by Georgia’s decision to greenlight direct commercial flights to and from Russia. “When we believe we all should be supporting Ukraine,” this move could allow Russia “to find space for evading sanctions,” Colomina said, adding: “We should be all behind Ukraine.”

At a recent event dedicated to discussing the agenda for the NATO Vilnius Summit, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said: “It is important that Georgia lives up to the democratic values we all believe in. And of course, we also expect non-NATO Allies to adhere to the sanctions and not to make it easier for Russia to finance and to organize the war of aggression against Ukraine.”

Where do we go from here?

The war in Ukraine has sparked a debate in the expert and diplomatic community about the likelihood of opening a “window of opportunity” for the aspiring Ukraine and Georgia. We have witnessed such a window of opportunity open in the case of EU integration, more to Ukraine’s advantage and less to Georgia’s.

With the NATO Vilnius Summit fast approaching, it is still unclear whether, in addition to the final communiqué and practical assistance, a political decision will be taken to propel Ukraine on the road to membership.

Politicians are leaning in: on June 1, Foreign Affairs Committees from 19 NATO member states issued a joint appeal to the NATO leaders to “create a clear path for Ukraine’s accession to NATO and give clear and strong security guarantees for Ukraine.” Ukrainian leadership meanwhile pushes hard for exactly this.

There are strong indications – such as French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement that even though the Alliance would stop short of membership, Ukraine will likely get a significant commitment from the Allies to enhance its long-term security. With only a month or so to go, the Summit final document and its deliverables are finalized as this article is written.

And while Ukraine will get something out of the Vilnius Summit, Georgia’s momentum appears to be waning. It is hard to imagine NATO embracing a country whose prime minister, echoing Putin’s rhetoric, blames the Alliance for the war in Ukraine.

The pain is felt by all those Georgians- diplomats, politicians, scholars, and ordinary citizens- who believe that NATO membership is the only way for Georgia to shed its fear of Russia’s existential threat and to prosper.

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian)