Georgia is moving away from joining the EU after elections surrounded by irregularities and allegations of fraud and, despite citizen response, pushed by a government with ties to the Kremlin. In Moldova, the recent referendum on accession to the Union was positive only by a very narrow margin in a vote surrounded by interference from Moscow. Russia keeps its tentacles strong in both countries, former Soviet republics and recent candidates to join the community club and in which Russia maintains territories with frozen conflicts that it has militarized and uses as anchors.
Tbilisi and Chisinau are considered the most fragile links in the European project. The weakness of Brussels’ response to Moscow’s maneuvers and the push of the Kremlin’s campaigns in favor of a supposed “neutrality” of both explain this condition to a large extent. In addition, the very difficult situation of Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion in a long war in which it is difficult to maintain support, the hesitations of the EU and its internal division towards an accession process that requires enormous changes have also played a role.
The EU maintains eastward enlargement as one of its major geopolitical objectives, as it was decades ago, when it added a dozen new members in 2004. For years, the Balkan accession process was frozen, but Russia’s war against Ukraine and the Union’s commitment to covering the gray zones of influence for its own security reactivated it. Ukraine and Moldova were declared candidates. Then, to Georgia, whose accession negotiations were blocked at the beginning of the year due to the authoritarian drift of its ultra-conservative Government, increasingly determined to follow the Russian path of undemocratic reforms.
The European Union – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned on Monday – will pay a price in terms of “war and instability” on its borders if it does not expand. But it has lacked the drive in Georgia and Moldova to confront Moscow’s maneuvers, says Tefta Kelmendi, of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) analysis center. “The EU has been weak in its response, which has been rather passive,” highlights the expert, who points out that the European messages are also towards Russia.
NATO warning
Already in April, a confidential NATO report warned of the weakness of both countries and the intensification of Moscow’s campaigns. Then, the president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, called the risky referendum on EU membership, along with the presidential elections. The second round will be held this weekend as another kind of plebiscite towards Sandu’s Europeanism against his rival’s close-to-Moscow attitudes.
Brussels is in a complicated balance. On the one hand, he wants to assure Moldova and Georgia that the European path is open, but on the other, he cannot send the message that it is something immediate. It runs the risk of raising hopes that are not fulfilled, as has happened in the Balkans, explains a veteran diplomat. “The situation of Georgia and Moldova is different, as are their own realities, but in no case is it that the European project has lost appeal; The point is that there are other much more tangible variables, including the manipulation of Russia for decades and the panic of ending up like Ukraine before the process towards the EU has even advanced,” he argues.
“The integration of these two countries into the EU has become politicized,” considers Denis Cenusa, a researcher at the EESC think tanks and the Moldovan Expert-Grup. “The domestic politics of Moldova and Georgia often hijack the issue of EU membership and any political crisis in these countries affects the image of the EU, which is unwilling to disassociate itself from problematic pro-EU politicians,” adds the expert, who believes that Brussels has often been too “naive” based on a strategy that the integration process is not linear and has reacted “late” to abuses by certain Moldovan and Georgian political sectors.
Faced with Georgia, the EU still remains cautious. On the other hand, he has read the result of the Moldovan referendum in terms of almost total victory: winning narrowly against someone who cheats – in allusion to Russian interference, including vote buying – is a success, they say. However, beyond the division in the country that can be perceived in the face of the result and the damage to the credibility of the democratic process, one of the keys is that the idea of betting on “neutrality” is taking hold in some sectors. The NATO document already warned of influence campaigns with that slogan as their center.
“They try to promote the idea that if Georgia and Moldova remain neutral it is better because they will be able to have healthier relations with the Russians, avoid any escalation and somehow drag these countries into the war in Ukraine,” says Natia Seskuria, a researcher at the Royal United Service Institute for Defense and Security Studies (RUSI). “But this supposed neutrality – which would distance them from the European path – means being deprived of Western partners. And neither Moldova nor Georgia have the capacity to deal, without their allies, with conventional, security or hybrid threats…” says the expert. Furthermore, among some sections of the citizenry there is a campaign that the EU is an external actor that tries to promote foreign values and deprive Georgians and Moldovans of their traditional values and religion, Seskuria continues.
The internal division in the Twenty-Seven towards the next major enlargement also affects the perception of the common project in the candidate countries. The visit of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, to Tbilisi two days after the elections, to give support to the Government party, Georgian Dream, is part of that discord. Orbán is considered the Kremlin’s submarine in the EU and has been disavowed by at least 15 member states, but he is a European prime minister.
The Hungarian national populist also delved into the narrative of neutrality. In a press conference with his Georgian counterpart, Irakli Kobakhidze, Orbán reiterated his congratulations for a victory that he considered “unquestionable” and stressed that the elections were “free and democratic”, despite the evidence of numerous irregularities presented by international observers. and also by local monitoring organizations, which estimate up to 300,000 committed votes (around 10% of the electorate). “No one wants to destroy their country and be involved in a senseless war,” Orbán said, referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has been used by Georgia’s ruling party as part of its propaganda, warning that if the opposition won , the West would force the country to open a “second front” of war against Russia.
The Hungarian leader recommended that the Georgian authorities “not take seriously” the criticism from the European Union. “They will last a couple of days,” he said. “In Brussels it is always like this, when the liberals win, it is democracy; But if conservative parties win there are always disputes, because European politics is based on a manual,” Orbán stated.
With information from Andres Mourenza from Tbilisi.