Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations

The upcoming months will be crucial for EU-Georgia relations. The new government of Prime-Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili plans to conclude talks on an Association Agreement and a free trade deal that would bind Georgia closer to the EU than ever before. Both sides hope that these negotiations will have been concluded by the time of the EU-Eastern Partnership summit in November this year in Vilnius. At the same time, Tbilisi’s bid to join NATO remains on track. What developments can be expected in the next couple of months in Georgia’s relations with the West? Alex Petriashvili, Georgia’s State Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, will address these and other questions about Georgia’s foreign policy and its Euro-Atlantic ambitions.

Alex Petriashvili is State Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Georgia. Previously he was Ambassador of Georgia to Turkmenistan and Afghanistan and worked as senior counsellor at the Georgian Embassies in Washington and Vienna.

Kadri Liik is a Senior Policy Fellow and head of ECFR’s Wider Europe programme.Kadriwas director of the International Centre for Defence Studies in Estonia, where she also worked as director of the Centre’s Lennart Meri Conference. Previously, Kadri worked as a Moscow correspondent for several Estonian daily papers and hosted a current affairs talkshow at Raadio Kuku in Tallinn.

You can download ECFR’s latest policy memo ‘Georgia’s bumpy transition: How the EU can help’ by Jana Kobzova here.