Nino Samkharadze  [1]

For five months, Georgia has faced a severe political crisis that has been worrying enough for its European partners to express unprecedented interest in the country’s ongoing political processes. Indeed, the EU has been actively involved  in attempting to solve the crisis: the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, was in charge of mediating an inter-party dialogue, and even mandated a personal envoy, Christian Danielsson, to engage in the mediation process. However, even the very high-level involvement of the EU proved unsuccessful: the Georgian political elite did not manage to reach an agreement, and the EU mediation in Georgia is considered to have failed at this stage.

According to certain analysis, the EU’s “failure” in the mediation process is logical to some extent, as the EU does not provide realistic perspectives for those countries hoping to become the EU members. Consequently, the importance of the European Union for Georgia’s political elites might be diminishing. However, it is important to discuss what the EU expected from the Georgian political leaders, and how could Georgia use the privilege of the EU mediation process to its own advantage.