Georgia: NATO Chief's Visit Encourages Membership "Dream"

A two-day visit to Georgia by North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary Gen. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has reinforced local ambitions for eventual membership in the Western military alliance, even while the alliance highlights particular reform areas of concern.

De Hoop Scheffer began his visit October 3, meeting with President Mikheil Saakashvili and other top government officials, delivering a speech at Tbilisi State University and appearing at a joint press conference with the Georgian president in Sighnaghi, a town in Georgia's wine region heavily promoted by the government. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

"NATO's door was open, and is open," de Hoop Scheffer announced at the October 4 press conference. The secretary general, however, pointed out that Tbilisi's membership chances depend solely on Georgia's reform performance, and not on the actions of other countries. "No nation, big or small, will have a veto or a 'droit de regard,' to say it in French, over NATO's enlargement process," the NATO chief said.

De Hoop Scheffer cast his visit as a "sign of encouragement" for Georgia to press ahead with reforms. "NATO will help Georgia wherever it is necessary to see that Georgia can reach its ambitions and can reach its goal," he said. At the event, Saakashvili did not speak about his country's NATO aspirations.

According to Georgian officials and local analysts, de Hoop Scheffer's trip is a "positive signal" for Georgia's eventual accession to the alliance. Elene Khoshtaria, the deputy state minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, stressed that de Hoop Scheffer's trip came at NATO's initiative.

"I cannot say that it [the visit] gives any specific signal on a MAP [Membership Action Plan, which is the last step before a possible membership invitation -- ed], but it is very good political support, and, of course, on the road to a MAP every single political signal, political support is important," she said.

Dr. Archil Gegeshidze, a political scholar at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, noted that Georgia's MAP status has more to do with the ministerial meetings planned between NATO and Tbilisi over the next several months. "There are lots of things to be further clarified," he said.

Among them is Georgia's progress in several reform areas. Defense and security are not the only sectors in which NATO is interested. The NATO chief pointed out that judicial reform is another sphere that is attracting the scrutiny of Brussels. "When assessing progress in Georgia, NATO has looked, and will continue to look, at the whole reform picture, and not just the military dimension," he said. In an earlier appearance at Tbilisi State University, De Hoop Scheffer indicated that the country's administration of its military budget and the 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections are also among topics of interest for the NATO allies.

The Georgian parliament approved a budget increase last month that allocated over 7 percent of the Gross National Product, or roughly $723 million, to the Defense Ministry. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

De Hoop Scheffer adopted a restrained approach on the matter of conflict resolution in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. While repeating the alliance's support for Georgia's territorial integrity, the NATO head stressed that "the mandate and expertise to try and resolve the conflicts in this region rest with the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] and the UN [United Nations], not with NATO. And the Alliance does not seek stronger involvement."

Local and international analysts have long pointed to weak judicial and legal reforms as obstacles that could prevent Georgia's membership in the alliance. According to NATO expert Shalva Pichkhadze, chairman of the lobbying organization Georgia for NATO, the Georgian government has been betting on NATO's political motivations for accepting the country as a member, rather than on having a pristine reform record.

Pichkhadze points to the "lack of the necessary level of democracy," as well as violations against human rights, property rights and no historical tradition of peaceful power transitions as real obstacles to Georgia's NATO accession. "[T]oo much attention," he argued, is being paid to military reforms, and not enough on democratic reforms.

"[Government officials] want to make more emphasis on so-called