On June 14, a NATO summit will take place in Brussels, one of the topics of discussion of which will be Georgia. The Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was important that the issue of Georgia was included in the part of the summit agenda, which concerns the support of international order.
The Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili will take part in the forum.
"Georgia has been conscientiously fulfilling all agreements and obligations, and we expect that this will be reflected and assessed properly. We expect that the progress we have achieved will be assessed and duly reflected. For our part, we have been conscientiously fulfilling all the obligations we have assumed." he said on the eve of the meeting.
The Brussels Forum will be attended by leaders of different countries, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and others. Therefore, it is important for Georgia what will be said about it at this forum. Some even hope that it is on June 14 that Georgia will finally be admitted to the ranks of the North Atlantic organization.
Let us briefly recall the history of Georgia's drift towards NATO - an aggressive military-political alliance of the developed countries of Europe, the USA and Canada, created in 1949, which was later joined by Turkey, the only Asian state in the organization's ranks.
The demand to join NATO sounded almost from the very first days of the open appearance in Georgia of anti-Soviet organizations, or, as they were then called "informals", who already in 1988 openly organized rallies in Tbilisi and other cities and towns of the then Soviet republic, and soon penetrated into the media, primarily television.
However, a series of military coups and civil wars prevented Georgia from formalizing its independence in time. Its recognition and consolidation of "territorial integrity" that did not exist by that time followed much later than in other former Soviet republics, already post factum.
Therefore, the institutional cooperation between Georgia and NATO began only in 1994, when Georgia became a member of the Partnership for Peace program. After the Rose Revolution, since 2004, cooperation between Georgia and NATO intensified. In 2011, Georgia received the status of a "NATO graduate student". In 2014, the Wales summit approved a package of measures to assist Georgia in its pursuit of membership in the Alliance.
Georgian officials and NATO representatives periodically make either optimistic statements about the prospects for the country's entry into the North Atlantic Alliance, or, on the contrary, pull the reins, holding back too zealous horses.
"I think that all our members will express their strong support for Georgia's membership, and we will continue to provide practical and political support," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters three years ago after the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of 29 NATO member countries.
However, since then the issue has not been resolved.
From NATO's point of view, this is not even necessary - after all, Georgia has long been behaving itself as if it were a full-fledged member of NATO, taking an active part in all the wars waged by the organization. Some frequenters of Georgian forums do not hide their delight: in the past, Muslim invaders came to Georgian soil, and now Georgian servicemen as part of the occupying troops are on the land of the occupied Muslim states of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The aspiration of the ruling elite of Georgia to join NATO is boastfully presented as the aspiration of the entire Georgian people. In fact, more and more Georgians are feeling the tightening of the economic noose around their necks. Contrary to the promises that have been sounding for 30 years, as the level of NATO involvement grows, the standard of living of the majority of the people of Georgia does not increase, but, on the contrary, is falling.
And, on the contrary, the prices for goods are growing both in supermarkets in Tbilisi, Batumi, Kutaisi and Gori, and in shops and spontaneous markets in small Georgian towns. At the same time, salaries for some categories of workers have not been raised for several years, while for others they have been rising, but slowly. The level of pensions does not allow purchasing even half of the necessary medicines.
Georgian voters also felt deceived about the abolition of the visa regime with Europe. They were waiting for it with hope, since they were promised the opportunity to go to work in Europe and return to Georgia with the money they earned in Europe, considerable by Georgian standards. Visas were canceled. However, visas were canceled not for those who want to earn money in Europe (this still requires a visa on an employment basis, which gives the right to work legally), but for those who want to travel to Europe with money earned in Georgia and spend it in Europe. This made Georgians feel cheated.
“Was it worth to destroy our industry? Our modern plants and factories?” - patriotic Georgians, ordinary users who are not connected with the ruling elite, ask a rhetorical question on social networks.
The lies of the pro-NATO members are visible at every step. In 1988, they promised that without the "dictatorship of Moscow" even from the export of tea, Georgia would become a prosperous state. What do we see today, more than 30 years later?
"In 1985, tea plantations in Georgia occupied about 70,000 hectares, from which 150,000 tons of tea were harvested. Now about 3,000 tons of tea are produced per year," Estonian journalist Hanneli Rudi quotes the information from the site renegadetea.com in today's article "The bored senior executive went to Georgia to do real work, «on the website of the Estonian news publication Postimees.
One of the main problems of today's Georgia is massive unemployment. Hoping for the multimillion-dollar monetary investments promised by the West, the country turned South Ossetia and Abkhazia into ruins, destroyed economic ties with Russia, closed its own plants and factories, which at one time were justly the proud of the entire Georgian people. And in return, instead of gratitude, it received only cold, arrogant indifference from the West.
It is difficult to find a job in the republic, and it is even more problematic to find a good job. For the younger generation of Georgia, unemployment has become a real scourge. Its highest level is observed among young people aged 25 to 35 years. It was this category of the population that could not get a proper education and take a worthy place in the labor market. This forces young and promising people to leave their homeland in search of work.
Labor migration from Georgia has reached its peak in recent years. 30 years ago, Georgians were promised well-paid jobs in Europe. What is the real policy of European states towards Georgians who come to Europe in search of an elementary opportunity to feed their families with honest labor? It is such that until now the European countries, to which the residents of Georgia most actively travel in search of work, have not yet deigned to create in their legislation decent conditions for the labor activity of temporary migrants from Georgia. At least as a sign of gratitude for Georgia's pro-NATO orientation, at least as gratitude for the victims of the 90s on the way to the EU and NATO. But no. NATO members have not a drop of sympathy for ordinary Georgians. The internal migration legislation of European countries, frightened by mass migration from the Islamic countries of the Middle East and the Muslim Maghreb, is becoming more and more rigid and impenetrable.
And there are no exceptions in it, even for such a super loyal and super servile country like Georgia. Therefore, the citizens of Georgia, dictated by the difficult living conditions in their homeland, forced to engage in illegal labor activities in Europe, are identified by European law enforcement agencies and sent back to Georgia to their starving families. They lose money spent on travel to Europe, and the money earned goes to fines. Sheer disappointment, apathy, an increase in crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, impoverishment, poverty of workers, social degradation, falling living standards, early mortality - this is the terrible price ordinary Georgians are paying today for the aspiration of the Georgian leadership to the EU and NATO.
Authorship:
Analytical department of the IA "Res"
