Georgia calls on Europe for coherent policy :: Charter'97 :: News

Europe must get its act together and work out a coherent policy to help sustain the young democratic governments on its fringes, according to Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia whose “rose revolution” nearly two years ago inspired similar movements.

In an interview with the Financial Times while attending the UN summit, the 38-year-old lawyer expressed particular concern over Ukraine where President Viktor Yushchenko sacked his government last week and faces parliamentary elections next spring.

“If Ukraine fails, it would be a total disaster for Georgia, for the wider region. It is in everyone’s interest to help them,” commented Mr Saakashvili.

He said Mr Yushchenko was “very able” and had a “good chance of surviving”, but that the reform process was moving more slowly than “we” had hoped for.

But he criticized the European Union, which he described as being in the process of redefining itself, as lacking a clear policy towards Ukraine, and urged it to make a strong pledge by March.

“Ukraine must have a realistic promise of something,” he said, noting that whereas all Georgians wanted Nato and European membership, it was not so clear cut in Ukraine.

Mr Saakashvili’s own government has been touted as a model of reform by the US which assigned a further $300m in aid for infrastructure projects from the Millennium Challenge account last week based on Georgia’s record of good governance. “It sends a strong message. It’s a reward for the whole process,” the president said.

Georgia is one of the largest per capita recipients of US aid and has sent troops to Iraq. Large crowds welcomed President George W. Bush in Tbilisi in May.

Georgia had received lots of promises from the EU, but little had materialized, Mr Saakashvili said.

Speaking in his hotel suite overlooking Central Park, Mr Saakashvili, who practiced law in New York, said Georgia was joining an initiative by Jordan’s King Abdullah to bring together lower and middle-income countries. He urged the Group of Eight industrialized nations not to ignore this category while “pouring money into the black hole of under-development and poverty”.

Turning to Russia, Mr Saakashvili commended President Vladimir Putin for having the “political courage” to go against the prevailing mood of “19th century thinking” and agree to withdraw Russian forces from bases in Georgia by 2008.

But the breakaway coastal region of Abkhazia, which Mr Saakashvili described as being run and bought up increasingly by the Russian elite and mafia while supported by Moscow, remained “a bleeding wound for us”, becoming a centre for trafficking of all kinds and counterfeiting of US dollars. He said Russia was refusing to discuss Georgian proposals on restoring its sovereignty while ceding a high degree of autonomy.

Nonetheless he saw a pro-western pragmatism in Mr Putin. “I’m confident that Putin wants to be on good terms with the west, to belong to this club. He’s delighted when Bush calls him his friend. Russia cannot afford to lose the confidence of the west.”