Tbilisi Not Present at Athens “Enlargement” Meeting
Tbilisi tries to manage media fallout over being left out of the summit in Athens alongside EU aspirant countries. According to diplomatic sources that Civil.ge spoke to on condition of anonymity, Greek Ambassador was to be summoned to the Foreign Ministry for clarifications today.
The summit, held at the behest of the Greek government, followed up on the Thessaloniki EU-Balkans summit held twenty years ago. This time, the summit was also attended by the leaders of Moldova and Ukraine and held in the presence of the President of the EU Commission and the President of the European Council, who called it an “informal meeting on EU enlargement.”
The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Archil Karaulashvili downplayed the absence yesterday, saying it was not the EU event and saying that “its main topic was not the [EU] enlargement, but the war in Ukraine,” which, he argued, explains the invitation extended to Kyiv and Chisinau.
Quoting anonymous diplomats in Brussels, Radio Liberty’s Brussels correspondent reported there was confusion about the failure to invite Georgia and Turkey – another country that is also formally the EU aspirant. While some sources said Athens sent out the invitations to Ankara and Tbilisi, others said they were not invited since Ukraine and Moldova “are further ahead” in the process.
Observers in Tbilisi were also irked by the phrase in the Athens Declaration adopted at the meeting that reads, “the Western Balkans, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, geographically adjacent to the EU Member States, have a common European heritage, history and a future defined by shared opportunities and challenges.” The mention of “geographically adjacent” countries given a priority was seen as a snub to Georgia, which only shares a sea border with the EU.
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