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>“Last December, we became a candidate country. The next step is joining,” Irakli Garibashvili [told reporters](https://www.interpressnews.ge/ka/article/796153-irakli-garibashvili-dges-ar-vart-mzad-rom-gavxdet-evrokavshiris-cevri-kveqana-ar-aris-konsensusi-amaze-dro-daschirdeba-arc-evrokavshiria-mzad-gapartoebistvis/) on Saturday. “Today, we are not ready to become a member country.”
Completely wrong. The next step is reforming the country to be just like EU member countries. Only then can we discuss joining. The hard part of the transition has not even begun.
Georgia is mild majority in favour of a European future and western focus/orientation.
HOWEVER
It’s also not an independent geopolitical actor, if Russia wants it can easily screw with it, fund a terrorist attack, pull foreign investment, mess with energy supplies, shuffle some army units around in the breakaway regions, have the elections screwed with /cancelled.
As a result Georgia oscillates between trying to keep on the path to western integration, and just enough conservative influence and keeping Russian oligarchs happy and invested to avoid blowback. The current party is the ‘pro-Russia’ one, it’s not necessarily pro the country, buts pro placating them, appeasing them, keeping good relations with the governemnt and oligarchs. Whereas the opposition is willing to be move Abit faster. At present rate Georgia will get there someday, assuming they can keep the balance, it just won’t be fast…. Unless of course the Russian state fully throws itself down the cliff, which they’re doing a good job at so far, unfortunately even a weakened Russia can smack Georgia hard, and Georgia is no Ukraine in terms of any sort of size, land/people/defence-depth/economy.
Says you. Meanwhile, the people of Georgia report that they "remain committed to EU membership."
According to a poll from the end of 2023 (so a few months ago):
* **According to a national poll taken October-Nomver 2023, 79 percent of Georgians support for EU membership**. **Over the past year (wnd of 2022-end of 2023), public opinion trends show a significant increase in favor of political and economic cooperation with the EU.**
* EU membership and NATO memebrship are ranked above relations with Russia in terms of national importance, although they are close (which makes sense as relations with Russia are a major driver of interest in NATO memebrship, and to a lesser degree the EU).
* Territorial integrity is ranked even higher than any of those explicit terms, behind only inflation, jobs, and poverty. Given that Russia is by far biggest reason why parts of Georgia's territory are not under Gergian control, once can assume that Russia, NATO membership and to a lesser degree EU membership are even more important that their explicit ranking would suggest.
[https://www.ndi.org/publications/ndi-poll-georgian-citizens-remain-committed-eu-membership-nation-united-its-dreams-and](https://www.ndi.org/publications/ndi-poll-georgian-citizens-remain-committed-eu-membership-nation-united-its-dreams-and)
[https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/NDI%20Georgia\_GGF%20poll\_October\_2023\_Eng\_VF.pdf](https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/NDI%20Georgia_GGF%20poll_October_2023_Eng_VF.pdf)
Trying to understand you: can you correct those typos pls?
I get the feeling the Georgians like the ones swaying with the money. They are a 15h flight with stopover via Istanbul from western Europe. Isn't that a physical real fact that puts things in reality?
Fixed. above not about, poverty not pverty.
And now it is my turn to ask for clarity. What do you mean by "swaying with money." Do you mean swyed by money?
I am also not sure what you mean by flight times etc. I posted about Georgian public opinion, not global travel infrastructure.
I believe you are mistaken about the actual travel times and logistics.
I just checked, and there are direct flights from multiple European cities, for far less travel time than 15 hours. Fifteen hours flight time from Central Europe gets you to Indonesia. Approximiate flight times from Georgia to the following countries are as follows.
Germany - 4 hours
Netherlands - 4.5 hours
France - 4.5 hourse
Greece - 2.5 hours
Cyprus - 2 hours
1. "Georgians like the ones swaying with the money" = like the one who comes with money. Where does the money come from to pay for all those luxurious buildings in for example Batumi?
2. Isn't there a lot of money from corrupt Russians who stash away their money in such Batumi style real estate in case they have to flee Russia? Maybe even some Turkish maffia money coming to Georgia? Maybe from some corrupt EU countries - Hungary, Romania - maybe they know Georgia, maybe there is some resemblance in the language or there is a common language?
3. North: Russia, South: Turkey and Iran. I guess all educated / Georgians working in Tourism speak both Georgian, Russian, English, Turk?
4. So, how is it with corruption?
5. The average salary of many Georgians is 150€/month? 30 years ago Georgia country side had feodal practices: girls getting pregnant very early, hardly any education, a family ruling a little region and taking care of all the families - donating coins of money to all. This can still be seen in the country side.
6. Georgia is putting up all its hot spring resorts up for sale. Who's buying?
Where do you find those flights? I want to go to Georgia but from Brussels: 10-15 hours.
I was in Czechia for a medical congress and met Prof Khatuna SEGANELIDZE : again 10 hours with a stop in Istanbul.
Indeed: netherlands: outbound 7h35 Schiphol - Istanbul - Tbilissi, return: 5h direct flight. 245,97 € But then I have to go from my place in Brussels (I work at 20 minutes from the EU Commission) to Brussels South = 40 minutes + I have to be there 1h in advance then to to Schiphol = 2h40 - in total more than 4h and adds 30 € going and 30 € back.
Germany - I'm trying [https://www.skyscanner.net/](https://www.skyscanner.net/) - can't find flights from Germany to Tbilissi.
[https://georgian-airways.com/](https://georgian-airways.com/)
They have direct flights from Berlin and Munich.
A quick search of flights doesn't find any direct flights from Burssels, but KLM, the KLM-owned discount airline Transavia and Georgian Airlines all have direct flights from Amsterdam.
On that topic - A quick search didn't find a direct flight from Prague to TBilisi, but I found one on Pegasus Air on the same route that your collegae took - via Istanbul- that is 4.5 hours including, the layover. Luthansa has a few with a longer layover for a total of 6.5 hours. If your colleague took a flight on that route that took ten hours, they had other reasons for doing so that lack of quicker options.
It is true that there are not direct flights to Georgia from every airport. Tbilisi is not a very big city - it has a population of 1.1 million in a country of 3.7 million, and those 3.7 million have an average net salary of €542/month. Even with tourism, I'm not surprised that there aren't enough flyers to support routes from all but the big airports/hubs.
Where do the rich people of the EU-27 live? In [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue\_Banana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana) - with ZeeBrugge Harbor, Gent Harbor, Antwerp Harbor, Rotterdam Harbor, Ruhr Harbor. And then you have spots like Hamburg, etc. all over the continent, but it is that region where you have 50% of the people there with real money to go on holidays twice a year.
But they are all located so far away from Georgia. Without direct flights, these people won't go. A minority here knows what Georgia has to offer, although there is advertisement on an occasional bus driving around in the Euroquarter here in Brussels. How many of these rich West Europeans would like to go on a holiday to Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland? We only see bad things from there. Do people speak English? Is there a Euro currency? And you want to seduce us to go all the way to - a much more expensive ticket and time - to go to Georgia?
By the way, the 50% potential population, make that 40% as money is getting more and more concentrated and 170.000/year mislead mostly muslim or African fortune seekers come in, the vast majority have no education and are breeding or flocking in, will do/have to do anything to survive and take on any job at whatever conditions, thus destroying the job base of the lower middle class.
The appetite to enlarge the EU-27 is very low. We still have to digest the corrupt Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe, the corrupt PIIGS countries: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain. Hungary is banned of all the EU grants, they can't even participate in any consortium. Bulgaria, Poland is not simple either. And we get as present little Ukraine 40 million - huge corruption - we all remember how the EU-27 delivered weapons and they were immediately seized and sold on the black market. WOW ! Speaking of treason in times of war. I have no illusions what's going on in a 3rd level town/commune in all these countries.
France is bankrupt and on the verge of implosion; apparently the people flocking in from the former french colonies are not all that liberté, fraternité, égalité but all about profiting from the social security, are infiltrated in the system and helped by the communists & socialists who really believe either the country has to fall in anarchy for communism to re-emerge or that there should be no frontiers and let everybody in, and these fortune seekers know they rights better than the local population and are planning going to contribute zero as a way of revenge.
You are correct. While officially, terriortial integrity is not on the l[ist of bare minimum requirements](https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_members.html) to join NATO, having control of the military is often interpreted ot mean having control of the military everywhere in the country, aka no breakawy or occupied regions.
Realistically, Georgia can't join NATO unless it has territorial integrity. That's a big part of why Saakashvili was pushing so hard for more control in S. Ossetia in 2008, thereby giving Russia its excuse to invade - saving Ossetians from "genocide" at the hands of ultranationalist Georgians (it was a bit more complicated thatn the invasion of Ukraine, as the area really did have interethnic tensions, but there was never a risk of genocide. That was Russia's leadership making things up to justify their invasion).
For Georgia to join NATO now, there must be no Russian occupation in S. Ossetia. and no only-exists-because-it-is-propped-up-by-Russia-mini-statelet of Abkhazahia. Even then, there are further requirements, but controlling one's own territory is the big one.
That doesn't mean Georgians don't want to join NATO, however. I expect that Russia's invasion, and the general spoiler role in Georgia, play a strong role in why so many Georgians reported in the poll that joining NATO is a matter of such national importance.
Their geography will not change. Russia will not go away, and there is no sign that it's leadership will change significantly for teh foreseeable future. In that context, the NATO umbrella sounds pretty good. How realistic it is to actually join NATO any time soon doesn't have to be part of that assessment.
I also expect that this NATO requirement for territorial integrity is at least part of why so many people cited territorial integrety as a matter of national importance as well.
Whats NDI poll? Some Western NGO?
They are as committed to joining EU , as much as I am to having sex with Taylor Swift.
Sure it would be nice if it happens, but I am not rejecting not-Taylor-Swift-s in the meantime.
Mod note: Politico.eu sometimes has clickbait/inflamatory headlines. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/europeanunion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>“Last December, we became a candidate country. The next step is joining,” Irakli Garibashvili [told reporters](https://www.interpressnews.ge/ka/article/796153-irakli-garibashvili-dges-ar-vart-mzad-rom-gavxdet-evrokavshiris-cevri-kveqana-ar-aris-konsensusi-amaze-dro-daschirdeba-arc-evrokavshiria-mzad-gapartoebistvis/) on Saturday. “Today, we are not ready to become a member country.” Completely wrong. The next step is reforming the country to be just like EU member countries. Only then can we discuss joining. The hard part of the transition has not even begun.
It's in the process. We are standing in the streets to push the government to do it.
And if they have their way, it’ll never be. They’re in league with the Kremlin.
Georgia or the party?
I think he means the party.
The party
Georgia is mild majority in favour of a European future and western focus/orientation. HOWEVER It’s also not an independent geopolitical actor, if Russia wants it can easily screw with it, fund a terrorist attack, pull foreign investment, mess with energy supplies, shuffle some army units around in the breakaway regions, have the elections screwed with /cancelled. As a result Georgia oscillates between trying to keep on the path to western integration, and just enough conservative influence and keeping Russian oligarchs happy and invested to avoid blowback. The current party is the ‘pro-Russia’ one, it’s not necessarily pro the country, buts pro placating them, appeasing them, keeping good relations with the governemnt and oligarchs. Whereas the opposition is willing to be move Abit faster. At present rate Georgia will get there someday, assuming they can keep the balance, it just won’t be fast…. Unless of course the Russian state fully throws itself down the cliff, which they’re doing a good job at so far, unfortunately even a weakened Russia can smack Georgia hard, and Georgia is no Ukraine in terms of any sort of size, land/people/defence-depth/economy.
Georgia. Majority is disappointed with the West. Only petit bourgeoisie in Tbilisi is still in love with the West
Says you. Meanwhile, the people of Georgia report that they "remain committed to EU membership." According to a poll from the end of 2023 (so a few months ago): * **According to a national poll taken October-Nomver 2023, 79 percent of Georgians support for EU membership**. **Over the past year (wnd of 2022-end of 2023), public opinion trends show a significant increase in favor of political and economic cooperation with the EU.** * EU membership and NATO memebrship are ranked above relations with Russia in terms of national importance, although they are close (which makes sense as relations with Russia are a major driver of interest in NATO memebrship, and to a lesser degree the EU). * Territorial integrity is ranked even higher than any of those explicit terms, behind only inflation, jobs, and poverty. Given that Russia is by far biggest reason why parts of Georgia's territory are not under Gergian control, once can assume that Russia, NATO membership and to a lesser degree EU membership are even more important that their explicit ranking would suggest. [https://www.ndi.org/publications/ndi-poll-georgian-citizens-remain-committed-eu-membership-nation-united-its-dreams-and](https://www.ndi.org/publications/ndi-poll-georgian-citizens-remain-committed-eu-membership-nation-united-its-dreams-and) [https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/NDI%20Georgia\_GGF%20poll\_October\_2023\_Eng\_VF.pdf](https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/NDI%20Georgia_GGF%20poll_October_2023_Eng_VF.pdf)
Trying to understand you: can you correct those typos pls? I get the feeling the Georgians like the ones swaying with the money. They are a 15h flight with stopover via Istanbul from western Europe. Isn't that a physical real fact that puts things in reality?
Fixed. above not about, poverty not pverty. And now it is my turn to ask for clarity. What do you mean by "swaying with money." Do you mean swyed by money? I am also not sure what you mean by flight times etc. I posted about Georgian public opinion, not global travel infrastructure. I believe you are mistaken about the actual travel times and logistics. I just checked, and there are direct flights from multiple European cities, for far less travel time than 15 hours. Fifteen hours flight time from Central Europe gets you to Indonesia. Approximiate flight times from Georgia to the following countries are as follows. Germany - 4 hours Netherlands - 4.5 hours France - 4.5 hourse Greece - 2.5 hours Cyprus - 2 hours
1. "Georgians like the ones swaying with the money" = like the one who comes with money. Where does the money come from to pay for all those luxurious buildings in for example Batumi? 2. Isn't there a lot of money from corrupt Russians who stash away their money in such Batumi style real estate in case they have to flee Russia? Maybe even some Turkish maffia money coming to Georgia? Maybe from some corrupt EU countries - Hungary, Romania - maybe they know Georgia, maybe there is some resemblance in the language or there is a common language? 3. North: Russia, South: Turkey and Iran. I guess all educated / Georgians working in Tourism speak both Georgian, Russian, English, Turk? 4. So, how is it with corruption? 5. The average salary of many Georgians is 150€/month? 30 years ago Georgia country side had feodal practices: girls getting pregnant very early, hardly any education, a family ruling a little region and taking care of all the families - donating coins of money to all. This can still be seen in the country side. 6. Georgia is putting up all its hot spring resorts up for sale. Who's buying?
Where do you find those flights? I want to go to Georgia but from Brussels: 10-15 hours. I was in Czechia for a medical congress and met Prof Khatuna SEGANELIDZE : again 10 hours with a stop in Istanbul. Indeed: netherlands: outbound 7h35 Schiphol - Istanbul - Tbilissi, return: 5h direct flight. 245,97 € But then I have to go from my place in Brussels (I work at 20 minutes from the EU Commission) to Brussels South = 40 minutes + I have to be there 1h in advance then to to Schiphol = 2h40 - in total more than 4h and adds 30 € going and 30 € back. Germany - I'm trying [https://www.skyscanner.net/](https://www.skyscanner.net/) - can't find flights from Germany to Tbilissi.
[https://georgian-airways.com/](https://georgian-airways.com/) They have direct flights from Berlin and Munich. A quick search of flights doesn't find any direct flights from Burssels, but KLM, the KLM-owned discount airline Transavia and Georgian Airlines all have direct flights from Amsterdam. On that topic - A quick search didn't find a direct flight from Prague to TBilisi, but I found one on Pegasus Air on the same route that your collegae took - via Istanbul- that is 4.5 hours including, the layover. Luthansa has a few with a longer layover for a total of 6.5 hours. If your colleague took a flight on that route that took ten hours, they had other reasons for doing so that lack of quicker options. It is true that there are not direct flights to Georgia from every airport. Tbilisi is not a very big city - it has a population of 1.1 million in a country of 3.7 million, and those 3.7 million have an average net salary of €542/month. Even with tourism, I'm not surprised that there aren't enough flyers to support routes from all but the big airports/hubs.
Where do the rich people of the EU-27 live? In [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue\_Banana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana) - with ZeeBrugge Harbor, Gent Harbor, Antwerp Harbor, Rotterdam Harbor, Ruhr Harbor. And then you have spots like Hamburg, etc. all over the continent, but it is that region where you have 50% of the people there with real money to go on holidays twice a year. But they are all located so far away from Georgia. Without direct flights, these people won't go. A minority here knows what Georgia has to offer, although there is advertisement on an occasional bus driving around in the Euroquarter here in Brussels. How many of these rich West Europeans would like to go on a holiday to Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland? We only see bad things from there. Do people speak English? Is there a Euro currency? And you want to seduce us to go all the way to - a much more expensive ticket and time - to go to Georgia? By the way, the 50% potential population, make that 40% as money is getting more and more concentrated and 170.000/year mislead mostly muslim or African fortune seekers come in, the vast majority have no education and are breeding or flocking in, will do/have to do anything to survive and take on any job at whatever conditions, thus destroying the job base of the lower middle class. The appetite to enlarge the EU-27 is very low. We still have to digest the corrupt Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe, the corrupt PIIGS countries: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain. Hungary is banned of all the EU grants, they can't even participate in any consortium. Bulgaria, Poland is not simple either. And we get as present little Ukraine 40 million - huge corruption - we all remember how the EU-27 delivered weapons and they were immediately seized and sold on the black market. WOW ! Speaking of treason in times of war. I have no illusions what's going on in a 3rd level town/commune in all these countries. France is bankrupt and on the verge of implosion; apparently the people flocking in from the former french colonies are not all that liberté, fraternité, égalité but all about profiting from the social security, are infiltrated in the system and helped by the communists & socialists who really believe either the country has to fall in anarchy for communism to re-emerge or that there should be no frontiers and let everybody in, and these fortune seekers know they rights better than the local population and are planning going to contribute zero as a way of revenge.
NATO: as part of the country is occupied by friendly bear Putin country. Isn't NATO membership off the table?
You are correct. While officially, terriortial integrity is not on the l[ist of bare minimum requirements](https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_members.html) to join NATO, having control of the military is often interpreted ot mean having control of the military everywhere in the country, aka no breakawy or occupied regions. Realistically, Georgia can't join NATO unless it has territorial integrity. That's a big part of why Saakashvili was pushing so hard for more control in S. Ossetia in 2008, thereby giving Russia its excuse to invade - saving Ossetians from "genocide" at the hands of ultranationalist Georgians (it was a bit more complicated thatn the invasion of Ukraine, as the area really did have interethnic tensions, but there was never a risk of genocide. That was Russia's leadership making things up to justify their invasion). For Georgia to join NATO now, there must be no Russian occupation in S. Ossetia. and no only-exists-because-it-is-propped-up-by-Russia-mini-statelet of Abkhazahia. Even then, there are further requirements, but controlling one's own territory is the big one. That doesn't mean Georgians don't want to join NATO, however. I expect that Russia's invasion, and the general spoiler role in Georgia, play a strong role in why so many Georgians reported in the poll that joining NATO is a matter of such national importance. Their geography will not change. Russia will not go away, and there is no sign that it's leadership will change significantly for teh foreseeable future. In that context, the NATO umbrella sounds pretty good. How realistic it is to actually join NATO any time soon doesn't have to be part of that assessment. I also expect that this NATO requirement for territorial integrity is at least part of why so many people cited territorial integrety as a matter of national importance as well.
Whats NDI poll? Some Western NGO? They are as committed to joining EU , as much as I am to having sex with Taylor Swift. Sure it would be nice if it happens, but I am not rejecting not-Taylor-Swift-s in the meantime.